A Chicago startup is developing printable materials designed to turn one of a data center’s biggest waste products back into electricity: heat.

Captis Materials is working with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Chain Reaction Innovations program at Argonne National Laboratory on low-cost thermoelectric generators for data centers. The company’s approach uses metal-free p- and n-type semiconductor materials that can be printed at room temperature onto plastic substrates.

Thermoelectric materials generate voltage from a temperature difference. This research post provides broader materials-science context; it is not a Captis announcement.

The interesting target is low-grade heat. Captis says its technology can operate below 70 °C, a range that is often too cool for conventional heat engines. Its data-center program is aimed at modular solid-state devices with no moving parts that could sit alongside cooling infrastructure.

PyroDelta demonstrates a different thermoelectric generator built for data-center liquid cooling, showing how the same heat-to-electricity principle can be integrated around cooling loops.

Argonne says a hypothetical 5%-efficient Captis device could save more than $30 million per year at a 1 GW data center and potentially pay back in under five years. Those numbers are projections, not published commercial results. Captis is still seeking data-center pilot partners.

The idea extends the waste-heat problem BitcoinVersus.Tech has explored through district heating, data-center cooling loops, and Bitcoin mining heat reuse. Instead of exporting the heat, Captis wants to convert part of it back into the thing data centers value most: electricity.

BitcoinVersus.Tech Editor’s Note:
We volunteer daily to ensure the credibility of the information on this platform is Verifiably True. If you would like to support to help further secure the integrity of our research initiatives, please donate using the QR code provided

For best QR-code scanning results, please scan this donation code from a desktop or larger screen. Mobile screens may prevent camera recognition.