Peltier Coolers or Thermal Electric Coolers are used to make things hot or cold but have another cool use. Apply a heat source to one side and keep the other side cool and the Peltier generates electricity.
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Nice demo video, I have played around with TECs for years now, still amazed with how they work.
When a TEC device is used to produce electricity it is called a thermoelectric generator, which utilizes the Seebeck effect.
The Seebeck effect is the conversion of temperature differences directly into electricity and is named for German-Estonian physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck, who discovered it in 1821, Peltier made the discovery of passing electricity through the same dissimilar material junctions to produce heating and cooling in 1836. Amazing that this technology has been around for so long and is used in modern products including space craft. Highly recommend people interested in this technology to look it up on wikipedia. There are many surplus shops on the internet that sell discount Peltier devices, True Seebeck devices are much harder to find. Peltier’s are inefficient as generators and Seebeck’s are poor heat/cool generators because of the specific optimizations of each.
Thanks for posting all the great videos!