PbS-Pb-Cu xS Composites for Thermoelectric Application
Li, Mengyao (Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya)
Liu, Yu (Institute of Science and Technology Austria)
Zhang, Yu (Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya)
Han, Xu (Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia)
Xiao, Ke (Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya)
Nabahat, Mehran (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Física)
Arbiol i Cobos, Jordi (Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia)
Llorca, Jordi (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament d'Enginyeria Química)
Ibáñez, Maria (Institute of Science and Technology Austria)
Cabot, Andreu (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats)

Data:	2021
Resum:	Composite materials offer numerous advantages in a wide range of applications, including thermoelectrics. Here, semiconductor-metal composites are produced by just blending nanoparticles of a sulfide semiconductor obtained in aqueous solution and at room temperature with a metallic Cu powder. The obtained blend is annealed in a reducing atmosphere and afterward consolidated into dense polycrystalline pellets through spark plasma sintering (SPS). We observe that, during the annealing process, the presence of metallic copper activates a partial reduction of the PbS, resulting in the formation of PbS-Pb-CuxS composites. The presence of metallic lead during the SPS process habilitates the liquid-phase sintering of the composite. Besides, by comparing the transport properties of PbS, the PbS-Pb-CuxS composites, and PbS-CuxS composites obtained by blending PbS and CuxS nanoparticles, we demonstrate that the presence of metallic lead decisively contributes to a strong increase of the charge carrier concentration through spillover of charge carriers enabled by the low work function of lead. The increase in charge carrier concentration translates into much higher electrical conductivities and moderately lower Seebeck coefficients. These properties translate into power factors up to 2. 1 mW m-1 K-2 at ambient temperature, well above those of PbS and PbS + CuxS. Additionally, the presence of multiple phases in the final composite results in a notable decrease in the lattice thermal conductivity. Overall, the introduction of metallic copper in the initial blend results in a significant improvement of the thermoelectric performance of PbS, reaching a dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit ZT = 1. 1 at 750 K, which represents about a 400% increase over bare PbS. Besides, an average ZTave = 0. 72 in the temperature range 320-773 K is demonstrated.
Ajuts:	European Commission 754411 Agencia Estatal de Investigación RTI2018-093996-B-C31 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-128 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-327 Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2020-116093RB-C43 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad SEV-2017-0706
Nota:	Altres ajuts: CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya
Drets:	Tots els drets reservats.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió sotmesa a revisió
Matèria:	PbS ; Solution synthesis ; CuxS ; Thermoelectric ; Nanocomposite ; Nanoparticle ; Energy conversion
Publicat a:	ACS applied materials & interfaces, Vol. 13, Num. 43 (October 2021) , p. 51373-51382, ISSN 1944-8252

DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c15609

Preprint 23 p, 1.4 MB

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