Fibrous materials for selective line emission application in a thermal-electrical energy conversion system

Fibrous rare earth composite emitters were developed for the application of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy conversion to increase the energy conversion efficiency of the system. In this paper, the authors demonstrated that fibrous composite emitters, with higher selective efficiency and good mechanical properties, were fabricated using a unique material processing technology. The spectra of the emitters, as well as their mechanical properties, were investigated. Some observations in this research have indicated that by using our current technology, we are able to tailor the spectrum by designing the emitter materials. Therefore, in order to achieve high energy conversion efficiency the designed emitters can be matched to the energy bandgap of new developing photovoltaic cells.