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Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration

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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 January 2022) | Viewed by 13996

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Paolo Mele

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Guest Editor

College of Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Saitama 337-8570, Japan
Interests: thin films; oxides; superconductors; thermoelectrics; energy materials; heat transfer; vortex matter; sustainability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure and honor to invite you to submit your contribution to this Special Issue of Materials entitled “Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration".

Thermoelectricity is a well-known phenomenon enabling the conversion of heat into electric energy without moving parts. Its exploitation has been widely considered to contribute to the increasing need for energy along with the concerns about the environmental impact of traditional fossil energy sources. In the last few years, significant improvements in the performance of thermoelectric materials have been achieved through chemical doping, solid solution formation, and nanoengineering approaches. Furthermore, the feasibility of flexible, stretchable, and conformable thermoelectric harvesters has been demonstrated and has attracted the interest of a wide audience. However, the path for practical applications of thermoelectrics still appears long.

This Special Issue of Materials is intended as an effort to bridge the gap between materials science and applications of thermoelectric materials. Many topics are welcome: New thermoelectric compounds; correlation between material structure and thermoelectric properties; bulk thermoelectric ceramics, oxides, and chalcogenides; bulk thermoelectric alloys and intermetallics; organic and polymeric thermoelectrics; thermoelectric thin films, multilayers, and nanocomposites; theory and modeling; thermal transport and thermal conductivity; applications and devices based on thermoelectric materials; standardization and metrology; and more.

Prof. Dr. Paolo Mele
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

thermoelectric materials
heat harvesting
refrigeration

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Editorial

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1 pages, 140 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Special Issue “Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration”

by Paolo Mele

Materials 2022, 15(5), 1672; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma15051672 - 23 Feb 2022

Viewed by 937

Abstract

It has been almost three years since I enthusiastically accepted to be guest editor for this Special Issue of Materials, entitled “Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration” [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

15 pages, 9507 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Effects of Preparation Procedures and Porosity on Thermoelectric Bulk Samples of Cu₂SnS₃ (CTS)

by Ketan Lohani, Carlo Fanciulli and Paolo Scardi

Materials 2022, 15(3), 712; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma15030712 - 18 Jan 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1949

Abstract

The thermoelectric behavior and stability of Cu₂SnS₃ (CTS) has been investigated in relation to different preparations and sintering conditions, leading to different microstructures and porosities. The studied system is CTS in its cubic polymorph, produced in powder form via a bottom-up approach based on high-energy reactive milling. The as-milled powder was sintered in two batches with different synthesis conditions to produce bulk CTS samples: manual cold pressing followed by traditional sintering (TS), or open die pressing (ODP). Despite the significant differences in densities, ~75% and ~90% of the theoretical density for TS and ODP, respectively, we observed no significant difference in electrical transport. The stable, best performing TS samples reached zT ~0.45, above 700 K, whereas zT reached ~0.34 for the best performing ODP in the same conditions. The higher zT of the TS sintered sample is due to the ultra-low thermal conductivity (κ ~0.3–0.2 W/mK), three-fold lower than ODP in the entire measured temperature range. The effect of porosity and production conditions on the transport properties is highlighted, which could pave the way to produce high-performing TE materials. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration)

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17 pages, 50304 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Synthesis and Characterization of Al- and SnO₂-Doped ZnO Thermoelectric Thin Films

by Giovanna Latronico, Saurabh Singh, Paolo Mele, Abdalla Darwish, Sergey Sarkisov, Sian Wei Pan, Yukihiro Kawamura, Chihiro Sekine, Takahiro Baba, Takao Mori, Tsunehiro Takeuchi, Ataru Ichinose and Simeon Wilson

Materials 2021, 14(22), 6929; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma14226929 - 16 Nov 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2181

Abstract

The effect of SnO₂ addition (0, 1, 2, 4 wt.%) on thermoelectric properties of c-axis oriented Al-doped ZnO thin films (AZO) fabricated by pulsed laser deposition on silica and Al₂O₃ substrates was investigated. The best thermoelectric performance was obtained on the AZO + 2% SnO₂ thin film grown on silica, with a power factor (PF) of 211.8 μW/m·K² at 573 K and a room-temperature (300 K) thermal conductivity of 8.56 W/m·K. PF was of the same order of magnitude as the value reported for typical AZO bulk material at the same measurement conditions (340 μW/m·K²) while thermal conductivity κ was reduced about four times. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration)

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12 pages, 4700 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Metallization and Diffusion Bonding of CoSb₃-Based Thermoelectric Materials

by Hangbin Feng, Lixia Zhang, Jialun Zhang, Wenqin Gou, Sujuan Zhong, Guanxing Zhang, Huiyuan Geng and Jicai Feng

Materials 2020, 13(5), 1130; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma13051130 - 03 Mar 2020

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2865

Abstract

CoSb₃-based skutterudite alloy is one of the most promising thermoelectric materials in the middle temperature range (room temperature—550 °C). However, the realization of an appropriate metallization layer directly on the sintered skutterudite pellet is indispensable for the real thermoelectric generation application. Here, we report an approach to prepare the metallization layer and the subsequent diffusion bonding method for the high-performance multi-filled n-type skutterudite alloys. Using the electroplating followed by low-temperature annealing approaches, we successfully fabricated a Co-Mo metallization layer on the surface of the skutterudite alloy. The coefficient of thermal expansion of the electroplated layer was optimized by changing its chemical composition, which can be controlled by the electroplating temperature, current and the concentration of the Mo ions in the solution. We then joined the metallized skutterudite leg to the Cu-Mo electrode using a diffusion bonding method performed at 600 °C and 1 MPa for 10 min. The Co-Mo/skutterudite interfaces exhibit extremely low specific contact resistivity of 1.41 μΩ cm². The metallization layer inhibited the elemental inter-diffusion to less than 11 µm after annealing at 550 °C for 60 h, indicating a good thermal stability. The current results pave the way for the large-scale fabrication of CoSb₃-based thermoelectric modules. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration)

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21 pages, 3410 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Redox-Promoted Tailoring of the High-Temperature Electrical Performance in Ca₃Co₄O₉ Thermoelectric Materials by Metallic Cobalt Addition

by Gabriel Constantinescu, Artur R. Sarabando, Shahed Rasekh, Diogo Lopes, Sergii Sergiienko, Parisa Amirkhizi, Jorge R. Frade and Andrei V. Kovalevsky

Materials 2020, 13(5), 1060; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma13051060 - 27 Feb 2020

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2278

Abstract

This paper reports a novel composite-based processing route for improving the electrical performance of Ca₃Co₄O₉ thermoelectric (TE) ceramics. The approach involves the addition of metallic Co, acting as a pore filler on oxidation, and considers two simple sintering schemes. The (1-x)Ca₃Co₄O₉/xCo composites (x = 0%, 3%, 6% and 9% vol.) have been prepared through a modified Pechini method, followed by one- and two-stage sintering, to produce low-density (one-stage, 1ST) and high-density (two-stage, 2ST) ceramic samples. Their high-temperature TE properties, namely the electrical conductivity (σ), Seebeck coefficient (α) and power factor (PF), were investigated between 475 and 975 K, in air flow, and related to their respective phase composition, morphology and microstructure. For the 1ST case, the porous samples (56%–61% of ρth) reached maximum PF values of around 210 and 140 μWm⁻¹·K⁻² for the 3% and 6% vol. Co-added samples, respectively, being around two and 1.3 times higher than those of the pure Ca₃Co₄O₉ matrix. Although 2ST sintering resulted in rather dense samples (80% of ρth), the efficiency of the proposed approach, in this case, was limited by the complex phase composition of the corresponding ceramics, impeding the electronic transport and resulting in an electrical performance below that measured for the Ca₃Co₄O₉ matrix (224 μWm⁻¹·K⁻² at 975K). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration)

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20 pages, 6581 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Structural Properties and Thermoelectric Performance of the Double-Filled Skutterudite (Sm,Gd)_y(Fe_xNi_1-x)₄Sb₁₂

by Cristina Artini, Riccardo Carlini, Roberto Spotorno, Fainan Failamani, Takao Mori and Paolo Mele

Materials 2019, 12(15), 2451; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ma12152451 - 01 Aug 2019

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 2708

Abstract

The structural and thermoelectric properties of the filled skutterudite (Sm,Gd)_y(Fe_xNi_1-x)₄Sb₁₂ were investigated and critically compared to the ones in the Sm-containing system with the aim of unravelling the effect of double filling on filling fraction and thermal conductivity. Several samples (x = 0.50–0.90 and y = 0.15–0.48) were prepared by melting-sintering, and two of them were densified by spark plasma sintering in order to study their thermoelectric features. The crystallographic study enables the recognition of the role of the filler size in ruling the filling fraction and the compositional location of the p/n crossover: It has been found that the former lowers and the latter moves toward lower x values with the reduction of the filler ionic size, as a consequence of the progressively weaker interaction of the filler with the Sb₁₂ cavity. The analysis of thermoelectric properties indicates that, despite the Sm³⁺/Gd³⁺ small mass difference, the contemporary presence of these ions in the 2a site significantly affects the thermal conductivity of both p- and n-compositions. This occurs by reducing its value with respect to the Sm-filled compound at each temperature considered, and making the overall thermoelectric performance of the system comparable to several multi-filled (Fe, Ni)-based skutterudites described in the literature. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Thermoelectric Materials for High Efficiency Energy Conversion and Refrigeration)

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