Studies show that more than 60% of energy is dissipated as waste heat, which should be collected in a way or another and converted to useful energy. Thermoelectric Materials (TE) does this job of converting heat into electricity via the well-known “Seebeck effect”. One of the traditional applications of TE in power generation is the use of radioisotopes thermoelectric generators in space probes and satellites (RTGs).
Guan, Z. P., & Dunand, D. C. (2013). Compressive creep behavior of cast Bi2Te3. Materials Science and Engineering: A, 565, 321-325.