Thermoelectric Properties of Carbon Nanotubes

Nguyen T. Hung, Ahmad R. T. Nugraha and Riichiro Saito
Additional contact information
Nguyen T. Hung: Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578, Japan
Ahmad R. T. Nugraha: Research Center for Physics, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Tangerang Selatan 15314, Indonesia
Riichiro Saito: Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578, Japan

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 23, 1-27

Abstract: Thermoelectric (TE) material is a class of materials that can convert heat to electrical energy directly in a solid-state-device without any moving parts and that is environmentally friendly. The study and development of TE materials have grown quickly in the past decade. However, their development goes slowly by the lack of cheap TE materials with high Seebeck coefficient and good electrical conductivity. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are particularly attractive as TE materials because of at least three reasons: (1) CNTs possess various band gaps depending on their structure, (2) CNTs represent unique one-dimensional carbon materials which naturally satisfies the conditions of quantum confinement effect to enhance the TE efficiency and (3) CNTs provide us with a platform for developing lightweight and flexible TE devices due to their mechanical properties. The TE power factor is reported to reach 700–1000 μ W / m K 2 for both p-type and n-type CNTs when purified to contain only doped semiconducting CNT species. Therefore, CNTs are promising for a variety of TE applications in which the heat source is unlimited, such as waste heat or solar heat although their figure of merit Z T is still modest (0.05 at 300 K). In this paper, we review in detail from the basic concept of TE field to the fundamental TE properties of CNTs, as well as their applications. Furthermore, the strategies are discussed to improve the TE properties of CNTs. Finally, we give our perspectives on the tremendous potential of CNTs-based TE materials and composites.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes; thermoelectric materials; low-dimensional materials (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/23/4561/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/23/4561/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:23:p:4561-:d:292470

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().