High Thermoelectric Performance of n-type BiTeSe-Based Composites Incorporated with Both Inorganic and Organic Nanoinclusions

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Abstract
N-type Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 (BTS) alloy has relatively low thermoelectric performance as compared to its p-type counterpart, which restricts its widespread applications. Herein, we designed and prepared a novel composite system, which consists of an n-type BTS matrix incorporated with both inorganic and organic nanoinclusions. The results indicate that the thermopower of the composite samples can be enhanced by more than 19% upon incorporating inorganic nanophase AgBi3S5 (ABS) due to the energy-dependent carrier scattering, which ensures a high power factor. On the other hand, further incorporation of organic nanophase polypyrrole (PPy) can drastically reduce its lattice thermal conductivity owing to the strong scattering of mid- and low-frequency phonons at these nanoinclusions. As a result, high figures of merit ZTmax = 1.3 at 348 K and ZTave = 1.17 (300-500 K) are achieved with improved mechanical properties in BTS-based composites incorporated with 1.5 wt % ABS and 0.5 wt % PPy, demonstrating that the incorporation of both inorganic and organic nanoinclusions is an effective way to improve its thermoelectric performance.
Funding Information
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (11674322, 12174393, 51672278, 51972307)
  • Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (2008085MA18)
  • Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (YZJJ202102, YZJJ-GGZX-2022-01)

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