Realizing a 10 °C Cooling Effect in a Flexible Thermoelectric Cooler Using a Vortex Generator

Abstract In this study, flexible thermoelectric coolers (FTECs) are used to develop an alternative personalized cooling technology to achieve a large temperature drop of 10 °C and cooling capacity of 256 W m^–2. Such an excellent cooling performance is attributed to the innovative design of the quadra‐layered Ag₂Se/poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate structure in FTECs and the induced air vortices by the vortex generator attached to the hot surface of the device. The applied pulse‐width modulation technique guarantees human body comfort at inconsistent ambient temperature by modulating the duty ratio of the power source, which also saves 35% of the power consumption. As a result, the as‐prepared FTECs only consume 68.5 W so as to maintain a comfortable skin temperature (32 ± 0.5 °C) when the ambient temperature is at 31 °C. This technology provides a reliable and adjustable solution for personalized cooling in environments where comfortable temperatures are exceeded.