Abstract
Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT)/Bi2Te3 composite powders were fabricated via a one-step in situ reductive method, and their corresponding bulk composites were prepared by a cold-pressing combing pressureless sintering process or a hot-pressing process. The influences of the preparation methods on the thermoelectric properties of the SWCNT/Bi2Te3 bulk composites were investigated. All the bulk composites showed negative Seebeck coefficients, indicating n-type conduction. A maximum power factor of 891.6 μWm−1K−2 at 340 K was achieved for the SWCNT/Bi2Te3 bulk composites with 0.5 wt % SWCNTs prepared by a hot-pressing process, which was ~5 times higher than that of the bulk composites (167.7 μWm−1K−2 at 300 K) prepared by a cold-pressing combing pressureless sintering process, and ~23 times higher than that of the bulk composites (38.6 μWm−1K−2 at 300 K) prepared by a cold-pressing process, mainly due to the enhanced density of the hot-pressed bulk composites.
Highlights
According to the Seebeck coefficient, thermoelectric (TE) materials can directly convert waste heat into useful electrical energy [1,2]
single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) the composite powders, which agrees with the results reported in Reference [25]
SWCNT/Bi2 Te3 bulk composites were prepared by a cold-pressing combing pressureless sintering process or a hot-pressing process, using the hydrothermal synthesized SWCNT/Bi2 Te3 nanopowders as raw materials
Summary
According to the Seebeck coefficient, thermoelectric (TE) materials can directly convert waste heat into useful electrical energy [1,2]. TE materials and having exhibited a high ZT value at RT [8,9,10]; the energy conversion efficiency of TE devices is still much lower than that of the maximum possible Carnot efficiency [2], which has limited the wide application of TE devices. In order to scale out the application of TE devices, the TE performance of inorganic bulk materials should be improved (e.g., optimizing their preparation technologies and compositions), and the conversion efficiency of thermoelectric devices should be enhanced [11] (e.g., optimizing their geometric structures [12]). Choi et al [15] prepared Te nanowires using a chemical method and synthesized flexible single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT)/Te nanowire films via a vacuum filtering method, and a power factor of 3.40 μWm−1 K−2 was obtained for the composite film with 2 wt % SWCNTs at RT
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