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Efficient low-grade heat recovery can help to reduce greenhouse gas emission as over 70% of primary energy input is wasted as heat, but current technologies to fulfill the heat-to-electricity conversion are still far from optimum. Here we report a direct thermal charging cell, using asymmetric electrodes of a graphene oxide/platinum nanoparticles cathode and a polyaniline anode in Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺ redox electrolyte via isothermal heating operation. When heated, the cell generates voltage via a temperature-induced pseudocapacitive effect of graphene oxide and a thermogalvanic effect of Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺, and then discharges continuously by oxidizing polyaniline and reducing Fe³⁺ under isothermal heating till Fe³⁺ depletion. The cell can be self-regenerated when cooled down. Direct thermal charging cells attain a temperature coefficient of 5.0 mV K⁻¹ and heat-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 2.8% at 70 °C (21.4 …