scholarly journals Enhancement of Thermoelectric Properties of Layered Chalcogenide Materials

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 371-378
Author(s):  
Manal M. Alsalama ◽  
Hicham Hamoudi ◽  
Ahmed Abdala ◽  
Zafar K. Ghouri ◽  
Khaled M. Youssef

AbstractThermoelectric materials have long been proven to be effective in converting heat energy into electricity and vice versa. Since semiconductors have been used in the thermoelectric field, much work has been done to improve their efficiency. The interrelation between their thermoelectric physical parameters (Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, and thermal conductivity) required special tailoring in order to get the maximum improvement in their performance. Various approaches have been reported in the research for developing thermoelectric performance, including doping and alloying, nanostructuring, and nanocompositing. Among different types of thermoelectric materials, layered chalcogenide materials are unique materials with distinctive properties. They have low self-thermal conductivity, and their layered structure allows them to be modified easily to improve their thermoelectric performance. In this review, basic knowledge of thermoelectric concepts and challenges for enhancing the figure of merit is provided. It discusses briefly different groups of layered chalcogenide thermoelectric materials with their structure and thermoelectric properties. It also reports different approaches in the literature for improving their performance and the recent progress done in this field. It highlights graphene as a promising nano additive to layered chalcogenide materials’ matrix and shows its effect on enhancing their figure of merit.

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 430-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Li ◽  
H.H. Hng ◽  
J. Ma ◽  
X.Y. Qin

The thermoelectric properties of Nb-doped Zn4Sb3 compounds, (Zn1–xNbx)4Sb3 (x = 0, 0.005, and 0.01), were investigated at temperatures ranging from 300 to 685 K. The results showed that by substituting Zn with Nb, the thermal conductivities of all the Nb-doped compounds were lower than that of the pristine β-Zn4Sb3. Among the compounds studied, the lightly substituted (Zn0.995Nb0.005)4Sb3 compound exhibited the best thermoelectric performance due to the improvement in both its electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity. Its figure of merit, ZT, was greater than the undoped Zn4Sb3 compound for the temperature range investigated. In particular, the ZT of (Zn0.995Nb0.005)4Sb3 reached a value of 1.1 at 680 K, which was 69% greater than that of the undoped Zn4Sb3 obtained in this study.


2010 ◽  
Vol 650 ◽  
pp. 137-141
Author(s):  
Qing Sen Meng ◽  
Wen Hao Fan ◽  
L.Q. Wang ◽  
L.Z. Ding

Iron disilicide (-FeSi2, and -FeSi2+Cu0.1wt%) were prepared by a field-activated pressure assisted synthesis(FAPAS) method from elemental powders and the thermoelectric properties were investigated. The average grain size of these products is about 0.3m. The thermal conductivity of these materials is 3-4wm-1K-1in the temperature range 300-725K. These products’ figure of merit is 28.50×10-4 in the temperature range 330-450K. The additions of Cu promote the phase transformation of -Fe2Si5 + -FeSi → β-FeSi2 and shorten the annealing time. It is proved that FAPAS is a benign and rapid process for sintering of -FeSi2 thermoelectric materials.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael Ng

<p>Energy consumption worldwide is constantly increasing, bringing with it the demand for low cost, environmentally friendly and efficient energy technologies. One of these promising technologies is thermoelectrics in which electric power is harvested from waste heat energy. The efficiency of a thermoelectric device is determined by the dimensionless figure of merit ZT = σS²T/k where σ is the electrical conductivity, S is the thermopower, k is the thermal conductivity, and T is the average temperature. In this thesis we investigate the use of nanostructuring, which has been known to lead to significant reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity to maximise the figure of merit.  One of the most successful bulk thermoelectric materials is Bi₂Te₃, with a ZT of unity at room temperature. Here we investigate the effects of nanostructuring on the thermoelectric properties of Bi₂Te₃. Sub-100 nm ₂Te₃ nanoparticles were successfully synthesized and the figure of merit was found to be ZT ~ 5X10⁻⁵ at room temperature. The effect of a ligand exchange treatment to replace the long chain organic ligand on the as-synthesized nanoparticles with a short chain alkyl ligand was explored. After ligand exchange treatment with hydrazine the figure of merit of sub-100 nm Bi₂Te₃ was found to increase by two fold to ZT ~ 1X10⁻⁴ at room temperature. Overall the figure of merit is low compared to other nanostructured Bi₂Te₃, this was attributed to the extremely low electrical conductivity. The thermopower and thermal conductivity were found to be ~96 μVK⁻¹ and ~0.38 Wm⁻¹ K⁻¹ at 300 K respectively, which show improvements over other nanostructured Bi₂Te₃.  Further optimisation of the figure of merit was also investigated by incorporating Cu, Ni and Co dopants. The most successful of these attempts was Co in which 14.5% Co relative to Bi was successfully incorporated into sub-100 nm Bi₂Te₃. The figure of merit of nanostructured Bi₁.₇₁Co₀.₂₉Te₁.₇₁ alloy was found to increase by 40% to a ZT ~ 1.4X10⁻⁴ at room temperature. Although overall the figure of merit is low, the effect of Co alloying and hydrazine treatment shows potential as a route to optimise the figure of merit.  A potential novel material for thermoelectrics applications is inorganicorganic perovskite single crystals. Here we report a synthetic strategy to successfully grow large millimetre scale single crystals of MAPbBr₃₋xClx, FAPbBr₃₋xClx, and MAPb₁-xSnxBr₃ (MA = methylammonium and FA = formamidinium) using inverse temperature crystallisation (ITC) in a matter of days. This is the first reported case of mixed Br/Cl single crystals with a FA cation and mixed Pb/Sn based perovskites grown using ITC. The bandgap of these single crystals was successfully tuned by altering the halide and metal site composition. It was found that single crystals of FAPbBr₃₋xClx were prone to surface degradation with increased synthesis time. This surface degradation was observed to be reversible by placing the single crystals in an antisolvent such as chloroform.  A tentative model was proposed to analyse the IV characteristics of the single crystal perovskites in order to extract mobilities and diffusion lengths. The MAPbBr₃ and MAPbBr₂.₅Cl₀.₅ single crystal mobilities were found to be between 30-390 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and 10-100 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ respectively, the diffusion lengths were found to be between 2-8 μm and 1-4 μm respectively. This is an improvement over polycrystalline thin film perovskites and comparable to other single crystal perovskites. The conductance of MAPb₁-xSnxBr₃ based perovskites was found to increase by 2 orders of magnitude even with just 1% of Sn incorporated. The thermal conductivity of MAPbBr₃ single crystals was found to be ~1.12 Wm⁻¹ K⁻¹ at room temperature which is reasonable low for single crystals, however no other thermoelectric properties could be measured due to the self cleaving nature of the single crystals with decreasing temperature and the high resistivity of the material.</p>


2005 ◽  
Vol 886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinsuke Yamanaka ◽  
Ken Kurosaki ◽  
Atsuko Kosuga ◽  
Keita Goto ◽  
Hiroaki Muta

ABSTRACTWe have prepared polycrystalline bulk samples of various thallium compounds and measured their thermoelectric properties. The most remarkable point of the thermoelectric properties of the thallium compounds is the extremely low thermal conductivity. The state-of-the-art thermoelectric materials such as Bi2Te3 and TAGS materials indicate relatively low the thermal conductivity, around 1.5 W/m/K. However, the thermal conductivity of the thallium compounds is below 0.5 W/m/K; especially that of silver thallium tellurides is around 0.25 W/m/K at room temperature. This extremely low thermal conductivity leads a great advantage for an enhancement of the thermoelectric performance. In this paper, we report on the properties of some thallium compounds selected for study as novel thermoelectric materials. One of these compounds seems to have a thermoelectric figure of merit comparable to those of state-of-the-art materials.


2012 ◽  
Vol 621 ◽  
pp. 167-171
Author(s):  
Tao Hua Liang ◽  
Shi Qing Yang ◽  
Zhi Chen ◽  
Qing Xue Yang

p-type Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3+xTe thermoelectric crystals with various percentages of Te (x = 0.00 wt.%–3.00 wt.%) excess were prepared by the gradient freeze method. By doping with different Te contents, anti-site defects, Te vacancies and hole carrier concentrations were controlled. The Seebeck coefficient, resistivity, thermal conductivity, carrier concentration, and mobility were measured. The relationships between the Te content and thermoelectric properties were investigated in detail. The results suggested that the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT of the Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3+0.09wt.% crystals was 1.36 near room temperature, the optimum carrier concentration was 1.25 × 1019 cm-3, and the mobility was 1480 cm2 V-1 S-1, respectively.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael Ng

<p>Energy consumption worldwide is constantly increasing, bringing with it the demand for low cost, environmentally friendly and efficient energy technologies. One of these promising technologies is thermoelectrics in which electric power is harvested from waste heat energy. The efficiency of a thermoelectric device is determined by the dimensionless figure of merit ZT = σS²T/k where σ is the electrical conductivity, S is the thermopower, k is the thermal conductivity, and T is the average temperature. In this thesis we investigate the use of nanostructuring, which has been known to lead to significant reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity to maximise the figure of merit.  One of the most successful bulk thermoelectric materials is Bi₂Te₃, with a ZT of unity at room temperature. Here we investigate the effects of nanostructuring on the thermoelectric properties of Bi₂Te₃. Sub-100 nm ₂Te₃ nanoparticles were successfully synthesized and the figure of merit was found to be ZT ~ 5X10⁻⁵ at room temperature. The effect of a ligand exchange treatment to replace the long chain organic ligand on the as-synthesized nanoparticles with a short chain alkyl ligand was explored. After ligand exchange treatment with hydrazine the figure of merit of sub-100 nm Bi₂Te₃ was found to increase by two fold to ZT ~ 1X10⁻⁴ at room temperature. Overall the figure of merit is low compared to other nanostructured Bi₂Te₃, this was attributed to the extremely low electrical conductivity. The thermopower and thermal conductivity were found to be ~96 μVK⁻¹ and ~0.38 Wm⁻¹ K⁻¹ at 300 K respectively, which show improvements over other nanostructured Bi₂Te₃.  Further optimisation of the figure of merit was also investigated by incorporating Cu, Ni and Co dopants. The most successful of these attempts was Co in which 14.5% Co relative to Bi was successfully incorporated into sub-100 nm Bi₂Te₃. The figure of merit of nanostructured Bi₁.₇₁Co₀.₂₉Te₁.₇₁ alloy was found to increase by 40% to a ZT ~ 1.4X10⁻⁴ at room temperature. Although overall the figure of merit is low, the effect of Co alloying and hydrazine treatment shows potential as a route to optimise the figure of merit.  A potential novel material for thermoelectrics applications is inorganicorganic perovskite single crystals. Here we report a synthetic strategy to successfully grow large millimetre scale single crystals of MAPbBr₃₋xClx, FAPbBr₃₋xClx, and MAPb₁-xSnxBr₃ (MA = methylammonium and FA = formamidinium) using inverse temperature crystallisation (ITC) in a matter of days. This is the first reported case of mixed Br/Cl single crystals with a FA cation and mixed Pb/Sn based perovskites grown using ITC. The bandgap of these single crystals was successfully tuned by altering the halide and metal site composition. It was found that single crystals of FAPbBr₃₋xClx were prone to surface degradation with increased synthesis time. This surface degradation was observed to be reversible by placing the single crystals in an antisolvent such as chloroform.  A tentative model was proposed to analyse the IV characteristics of the single crystal perovskites in order to extract mobilities and diffusion lengths. The MAPbBr₃ and MAPbBr₂.₅Cl₀.₅ single crystal mobilities were found to be between 30-390 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and 10-100 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ respectively, the diffusion lengths were found to be between 2-8 μm and 1-4 μm respectively. This is an improvement over polycrystalline thin film perovskites and comparable to other single crystal perovskites. The conductance of MAPb₁-xSnxBr₃ based perovskites was found to increase by 2 orders of magnitude even with just 1% of Sn incorporated. The thermal conductivity of MAPbBr₃ single crystals was found to be ~1.12 Wm⁻¹ K⁻¹ at room temperature which is reasonable low for single crystals, however no other thermoelectric properties could be measured due to the self cleaving nature of the single crystals with decreasing temperature and the high resistivity of the material.</p>


2007 ◽  
Vol 1044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mi-kyung Han ◽  
Huijun Kong ◽  
Ctirad Uher ◽  
Mercouri G Kanatzidis

AbstractWe performed comparative investigations of the Ag1-xPb18MTe20 (M = Bi, Sb) (x = 0, 0.14, 0.3) system to better understand the roles of Sb and Bi on the thermoelectric properties. In both systems, the electrical conductivity nearly keeps the same values, while the Seebeck coefficient decreases dramatically in going from Sb to Bi. Compared to the lattice thermal conductivity of PbTe, that of AgPb18BiTe20 is substantially reduced. The lattice thermal conductivity of the Bi analog, however, is higher than that of AgPb18SbTe20 and this is attributed largely to the decrease in the degree of mass fluctuation between the nanostructures and the matrix (for the Bi analog). As a result the dimensionless figure of merit ZT of Ag1-xPb18MTe20 (M = Bi) is found to be smaller than that of Ag1-xPb18MTe20 (M = Sb).


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 3154
Author(s):  
Kony Chatterjee ◽  
Tushar K. Ghosh

Since prehistoric times, textiles have served an important role–providing necessary protection and comfort. Recently, the rise of electronic textiles (e-textiles) as part of the larger efforts to develop smart textiles, has paved the way for enhancing textile functionalities including sensing, energy harvesting, and active heating and cooling. Recent attention has focused on the integration of thermoelectric (TE) functionalities into textiles—making fabrics capable of either converting body heating into electricity (Seebeck effect) or conversely using electricity to provide next-to-skin heating/cooling (Peltier effect). Various TE materials have been explored, classified broadly into (i) inorganic, (ii) organic, and (iii) hybrid organic-inorganic. TE figure-of-merit (ZT) is commonly used to correlate Seebeck coefficient, electrical and thermal conductivity. For textiles, it is important to think of appropriate materials not just in terms of ZT, but also whether they are flexible, conformable, and easily processable. Commercial TEs usually compromise rigid, sometimes toxic, inorganic materials such as bismuth and lead. For textiles, organic and hybrid TE materials are more appropriate. Carbon-based TE materials have been especially attractive since graphene and carbon nanotubes have excellent transport properties with easy modifications to create TE materials with high ZT and textile compatibility. This review focuses on flexible TE materials and their integration into textiles.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (02) ◽  
pp. 2050019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Zhang ◽  
M. M. Fan ◽  
C. C. Ruan ◽  
Y. W. Zhang ◽  
X.-J. Li ◽  
...  

[Formula: see text] ceramic samples have a structure similar to phonon glass electronic crystals, and their thermoelectric properties can be effectively adjusted through repeated grinding and sintering. The results show that multi-sintering can make their grain refined and increase their grain boundary, which will effectively increase density and phonon scattering. Finally, multi-sintering can reduce the resistivity and thermal conductivity, thus obviously improve thermoelectric figure of merit [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text]. The optimum [Formula: see text] value of 0.26 is achieved at 923 K by the third sintered sample.


2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 837-843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinfeng Tang ◽  
Lidong Chen ◽  
Takashi Goto ◽  
Toshio Hirai

Single-phase filled skutterudite compounds, CeyFexCo4−xSb12 (x = 0 to 3.0, y = 0 to 0.74), were synthesized by a melting method. The effects of Fe content and Ce filling fraction on the thermoelectric properties of CeyFexCo4−xSb12 were investigated. The lattice thermal conductivity of Ce-saturated CeyFexCo4−xSb12, y being at the maximum corresponding to x, decreased with increasing Fe content (x) and reached its minimum at about x = 1.5. When x was 1.5, lattice thermal conductivity decreased with increasing Ce filling fraction till y = 0.3 and then began to increase after reaching the minimum at y = 0.3. Hole concentration and electrical conductivity of Cey Fe1.5Co2.5Sb12 decreased with increasing Ce filling fraction. The Seebeck coefficient increased with increasing Ce filling fraction. The greatest dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit T value of 1.1 was obtained at 750 K for the composition of Ce0.28Fe1.52Co2.48Sb12.


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