Thermoelectric materials for energy conversion are more and more promising due to the recent breakthroughs in enhancing the dimensionless thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) by nanostructuring approach. I will first introduce the nanostructure approach to enhance the ZT, then present a few cases to show the generality of the nanostructure approach, finally focus on the development of half-Heuslers and waste heat recovery using these ZT enhanced materials. At the end if time permits, I will show our very recent success on ZT enhancement on a couple of new materials. The main scheme is to enhance the ZT in these materials systems by studying the compositions and creating nanostructures to reduce the thermal conductivity and simultaneously increase the power factor.

High performance phermoelectric materials and their applications in energy conversion

247th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.