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High thermoelectric properties with low thermal conductivity due to the porous structure induced by the dendritic branching in n-type PbS

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Abstract

PbS-based thermoelectric materials have attracted extensive attention in recent years for the advantages of earth abundancy and low cost, which is considered to be a substitute for traditional PbTe material. However, their high thermal conductivity restricts its development. Hence, in order to improve their thermoelectric performance from reducing the thermal conductivity, a kind of dendritic PbS with controlled crystal grain and morphology are obtained by solution synthesis. By adjusting the amount of surfactant (CTAB), the specific formation process of dendrites is regulated. After sintering, the dendritic PbS nanoparticles are easy to form porous structure due to the overlapping and staggered arrangement of dendritic branches. For comparison, we also prepare a kind of regular octahedral PbS and a dense packing arrangement is formed because of the integrity of the octahedral structure. DFT-based Boltzmann transport equation is used to prove the crucial role of porous structure in scattering phonon. Finally, a maximum zT = 1.0 at 773 K in n-type PbS is obtained, which still keep a high-speed growth and is expected to get higher zT value in a higher temperature region. Our work may shed light to other thermoelectric materials from the formation of porous structure to reduce the thermal conductivity.

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Acknowledgements

B.X. thanks financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21801133), Jiangsu Specially Appointed Professorship, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Talents in Jiangsu Province and State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University. J. T. and T. F. acknowledge the support from the University of Utah.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China

    Zhenyu Zhu, Yue Lou & Biao Xu

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Janak Tiwari & Tianli Feng

  3. State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, China

    Zhan Shi

  4. State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210000, China

    Biao Xu

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  1. Zhenyu Zhu
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  2. Janak Tiwari
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  3. Tianli Feng
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  4. Zhan Shi
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Correspondence to Yue Lou or Biao Xu.

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12274_2022_4117_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

High thermoelectric properties with low thermal conductivity due to the porous structure induced by the dendritic branching in n-type PbS

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Zhu, Z., Tiwari, J., Feng, T. et al. High thermoelectric properties with low thermal conductivity due to the porous structure induced by the dendritic branching in n-type PbS. Nano Res. 15, 4739–4746 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4117-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4117-9

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