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Title: Highly Porous Thermoelectric Nanocomposites with Low Thermal Conductivity and High Figure of Merit from Large-Scale Solution-Synthesized Bi2Te2.5Se0.5 Hollow Nanostructures

Journal Article · · Angewandte Chemie (International Edition)
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [2];  [3];  [1]
  1. Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States). Dept. of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States)
  2. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
  3. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
  4. 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
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 123 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Large-Scale, Solution-Synthesized Nanostructured Composites for Thermoelectric Applications journal August 2018
Self‐Templating Approaches to Hollow Nanostructures journal July 2018
Progress of Photodetectors Based on the Photothermoelectric Effect journal July 2019
Are Cu 2 Te‐Based Compounds Excellent Thermoelectric Materials? journal October 2019
Creating Zipper-Like van der Waals Gap Discontinuity in Low-Temperature-Processed Nanostructured PbBi 2 n Te 1+3 n : Enhanced Phonon Scattering and Improved Thermoelectric Performance journal July 2018
Thermoelectric materials: The power of pores journal February 2017
High thermoelectric performance of n-type Bi 2 Te 2.7 Se 0.3 via nanostructure engineering journal January 2018
Dual defect system of tellurium antisites and silver interstitials in off-stoichiometric Bi 2 (Te,Se) 3+y causing enhanced thermoelectric performance journal January 2019
Compositionally tunable ternary Bi 2 (Se 1−x Te x ) 3 and (Bi 1−y Sb y ) 2 Te 3 thin films via low pressure chemical vapour deposition journal January 2018
Achieving high thermoelectric performance through constructing coherent interfaces and building interface potential barriers in n-type Bi 2 Te 3 /Bi 2 Te 2.7 Se 0.3 nanocomposites journal January 2019
Interfacial energy band and phonon scattering effect in Bi 2 Te 3 -polypyrrole hybrid thermoelectric material journal October 2018
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Advances in thermoelectrics journal April 2018