Abstract
Because of the large Seebeck coefficient, low thermal conductivity, and earth-abundant nature of components, tetrahedrites are promising thermoelectric materials. DFT calculations reveal that the additional copper atoms in Cu-rich Cu14Sb4S13 tetrahedrite can effectively engineer the chemical potential towards high thermoelectric performance. Here, the Cu-rich tetrahedrite phase was prepared using a novel approach, which is based on the solvothermal method and piperazine serving both as solvent and reagent. As only pure elements were used for the synthesis, the offered method allows us to avoid the typically observed inorganic salt contaminations in products. Prepared in such a way, Cu14Sb4S13 tetrahedrite materials possess a very high Seebeck coefficient (above 400 μVK−1) and low thermal conductivity (below 0.3 Wm−1K−1), yielding to an excellent dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit ZT ≈ 0.65 at 723 K. The further enhancement of the thermoelectric performance is expected after attuning the carrier concentration to the optimal value for achieving the highest possible power factor in this system.
Highlights
Academic Editor: Bertrand LenoirDue to its unique property to interconvert heat and electricity, thermoelectric (TE)materials can be used for the construction of two main types of devices [1]
Thermoelectric generators have become especially important in the development of modern electronically powered devices where recovering waste energy is significant in terms of the price and eco-friendly nature [5,6]
The efficiency of thermoelectric material is defined by the dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit ZT = S2 σT/κel +κL, where S is the Seebeck coefficient, σ is the electrical conductivity, T is the temperature, and κel, κlat are the electronic and lattice components of the thermal conductivity [7,8]
Summary
Due to its unique property to interconvert heat and electricity, thermoelectric (TE). As the Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, and electronic thermal conductivity are interrelated through the carrier concentration and particularities of the band structure, the development of the highly efficient TE materials requires specific properties (narrow bandgap, multivalley band structure, high mobility, high solubility of dopants, intrinsically low κlat ) [9,10,11]. Thermoelectric materials based on Cu12 Sb4 S13 possess very low lattice thermal conductivity (κL ≈ 0.5–0.9 Wm−1 K−1 ) and promising values of the Seebeck coefficient (S ≈ 60–300 μVK−1 ) over the wide temperature range [36,37]. The measured thermal conductivity κ, for the Cu14 Sb4 S13 tetrahedrite, is equal to 0.17–0.32 Wm−1 K−1 , which is in the range of the lowest values of the thermal conductivity observed in the light-weight sulfides
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