A new inorganic material with lowest thermal conductivity

Approximately 70% of all the energy generated in the world is wasted as heat. The development of new and more efficient thermoelectric materials, which can convert heat into electricity, is considered a key source of clean energy.

A collaborative research team, has discovered a new inorganic material with the lowest thermal conductivity ever reported.

This discovery represents a breakthrough in the control of heat flow at the atomic scale, achieved by materials design. It offers fundamental new insights into the management of energy. The new understanding will accelerate the development of new materials for converting waste heat to power and for the efficient use of fuels.

The research team, combined two different arrangements of atoms that were each found to slow down the speed at which heat moves through the structure of a solid.

This new material, has a much lower thermal conductivity than either of the parent materials with just one arrangement. This unexpected result shows the synergic effect of the chemical control of atomic locations in the structure, and is the reason why the properties of the whole structure are superior to those of the two individual parts.

If we take the thermal conductivity of steel as 1, then a Titanium bar is 0.1, water and a construction brick is 0.01, the new material is 0.001 and air is 0.0005.

The exciting finding of this study is that it is possible to enhance the property of a material using complementary physics concepts and appropriate atomistic interfacing. Beyond heat transport, this strategy could be applied to other important fundamental physical properties such as magnetism and superconductivity, leading to lower energy computing and more efficient transport of electricity.