Heat Transfer Challenges and Advanced Thermal Management of Thermoelectric Modules and Devices: A Comprehensive Review

Thermoelectric modules enable direct conversion between thermal and electrical energy and offer attractive opportunities for waste-heat recovery, solid-state refrigeration, electronics cooling, renewable energy harvesting, and thermal control. Although considerable progress has been achieved in enhancing the thermoelectric figure of merit of constituent materials, practical device performance is frequently constrained by heat transfer processes occurring within the thermoelectric legs, across material interfaces, and between the module and external heat sources and sinks. This review provides a comprehensive assessment of the heat transfer challenges governing thermoelectric modules and devices and critically evaluates thermal management strategies from the material to system scale. The fundamental coupling among thermoelectric effects, Fourier conduction, and Joule heating processes is first presented, followed by analysis of contradictory thermal requirements, phonon transport, temperature-dependent properties, thermal contact resistance, heat leakage, parasitic losses, temperature nonuniformity, and transient thermal loads. Particular attention is given to advanced heat rejection and heat supply technologies, including optimized finned heat sinks, microchannel heat sinks, jet impingement, heat pipes, vapor chambers, and phase change materials. Emerging approaches involving nanostructured thermal interfaces, additive manufacturing, machine-learning-assisted optimization, and hybrid cooling are critically assessed. The review identifies a transition from component-level thermal-resistance minimization toward integrated material–interface–device–heat-exchanger co-design. Major research needs include transient experimental datasets, physics-informed artificial intelligence, scalable manufacturing, and validation under realistic operating conditions. Future thermoelectric systems will require simultaneous optimization of heat transfer, electrical performance, auxiliary energy consumption, mechanical reliability, manufacturability, and lifecycle performance.