One of the main challenges for renewable energies is the conversion into electrical energy of part of the heat
unnecessarily lost in most industrial processes. This is possible, for instance, by using thermoelectric processes like the
Seebeck effect. If you heat a conductive structure at one end, the electrons acquire kinetic energy and migrate to the
cold part, unlike positive ions which remain immobile. This therefore leads to an imbalance of charges inducing the
appearance of electric field and potential. A potential difference also appears at the junction of two conductors of
different types exposed to a temperature difference. The best-known use of the Seebeck effect is to measure temperature
with thermocouples. This effect also provides a process schema for the conversion of thermal energy into electrical
one. Recent studies on ionic liquids or charged colloidal solutions have shown very high conversion factors. The main
goal of this internship is the study of this effect on solutions and deposition of nanoparticles and nanostructures and in
particular on fractal nanostructures obtained by vapor phase preformed clusters on carbon surfaces (graphite,
graphene, nanotubes,…). This involves experimental measurements using a high resolution potentiostat-galvanostat of
thermoelectric charges, electrochemical characterization (zeta potential, cyclic voltammetry, etc.) and the
interpretation of the data by numerical simulations.