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Porous ZnO with Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties

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Abstract

Porous ZnO was synthesized by a soft template method using F127 as a surfactant together with spark plasma sintering (SPS) treatment. The pore structure and textural characteristics of the samples were investigated by x-ray diffraction analysis, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, and N2 adsorption/desorption measurements. Due to the pore structure, the porous ZnO has an ultralow thermal conductivity of 2.2 W m−1 K−1 measured at room temperature after sintering at 500°C. However, the electrical conductivity stays relatively low at values between 0.02 and 15.8 S m−1 in the measurement temperature range of 27–500°C. Although the electrical conductivity is deteriorated by the pore structure, it is compensated by an increase in the sintering temperature. With the increase in sintering temperature, the electrical conductivity increases. As a result, a high electrical conductivity of 5405 S m−1 is achieved at room temperature for the porous ZnO sintered at 800°C. Because of its high power factor and moderate thermal conductivity, the maximum ZT value of porous ZnO sintered at 800°C reaches 0.0573 measured at 500°C, which is increased by 6 times compared with ZnO (0.008) around this temperature.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant nos. 12175166 and Henan Province Science and Technology Research Project 232102230070.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of physics and Electrical Engineering, Zhengzhou Normal University, Zhengzhou, 450044, People’s Republic of China

    Lili Chen & Yanan Tang

  2. Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, 450003, People’s Republic of China

    Bo Zhou

  3. College of Basic Sciences, Zhengzhou University of Technology, Zhengzhou, 450044, People’s Republic of China

    Wenfeng Pan

  4. Department of Physics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, People’s Republic of China

    Zhiquan Chen

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  1. Lili Chen
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Correspondence to Yanan Tang.

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Chen, L., Zhou, B., Pan, W. et al. Porous ZnO with Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties. J. Electron. Mater. 52, 6071–6079 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-023-10536-1

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