Highly Porous Thermoelectric Nanocomposites with Low Thermal Conductivity and High Figure of Merit from Large-Scale Solution-Synthesized Bi2Te2.5Se0.5 Hollow Nanostructures
- Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States). Dept. of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States)
- Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
- Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
- Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States)
To enhance the performance of thermoelectric materials and enable access to their widespread applications, it is beneficial yet challenging to synthesize hollow nanostructures in large quantities, with high porosity, low thermal conductivity (κ) and excellent figure of merit ($$z$$T). Herein we report a scalable (ca. 11.0 g per batch) and low-temperature colloidal processing route for Bi2Te2.5Se0.5 hollow nanostructures. They are sintered into porous, bulk nanocomposites (phi 10 mm×h 10 mm) with low κ (0.48 W m-1 K-1) and the highest z T (1.18) among state-of-the-art Bi2Te3-xSex materilas. Additional benefits of the unprecedented low relative density (68–77 %) are the large demand reduction of raw materials and the improved portability. This method can be adopted to fabricate other porous phase-transition and thermoelectric chalcogenide materials and will pave the way for the implementation of hollow nanostructures in other fields.
- Research Organization:
- Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0001299; FG02-09ER46577; AC02-07CH11358
- OSTI ID:
- 1470457
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1401264
- Journal Information:
- Angewandte Chemie (International Edition), Vol. 56, Issue 13; Related Information: S3TEC partners with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (lead); Boston College; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; ISSN 1433-7851
- Publisher:
- WileyCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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Related Subjects
42 ENGINEERING
77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
hollow nanostructures
Kirkendall effect
porous nanocomposites
thermal conductivity
thermoelectric materials
solar (photovoltaic)
solar (thermal)
solid state lighting
phonons
thermoelectric
defects
mechanical behavior
charge transport
spin dynamics
materials and chemistry by design
optics
synthesis (novel materials)
synthesis (self-assembly)
synthesis (scalable processing)