Maximizing the performance of n-type Mg3Bi2 based materials for room-temperature power generation and thermoelectric cooling

Zihang Liu, Weihong Gao, Hironori Oshima, Kazuo Nagase, Chul-Ho Lee and Takao Mori ()
Additional contact information
Zihang Liu: National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS)
Weihong Gao: National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS)
Hironori Oshima: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
Kazuo Nagase: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
Chul-Ho Lee: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
Takao Mori: National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS)

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Although the thermoelectric effect was discovered around 200 years ago, the main application in practice is thermoelectric cooling using the traditional Bi2Te3. The related studies of new and efficient room-temperature thermoelectric materials and modules have, however, not come to fruition yet. In this work, the electronic properties of n-type Mg3.2Bi1.5Sb0.5 material are maximized via delicate microstructural design with the aim of eliminating the thermal grain boundary resistance, eventually leading to a high zT above 1 over a broad temperature range from 323 K to 423 K. Importantly, we further demonstrated a great breakthrough in the non-Bi2Te3 thermoelectric module, coupled with the high-performance p-type α-MgAgSb, for room-temperature power generation and thermoelectric cooling. A high conversion efficiency of ~2.8% at the temperature difference of 95 K and a maximum temperature difference of 56.5 K are experimentally achieved. If the interfacial contact resistance is further reduced, our non-Bi2Te3 module may rival the long-standing champion commercial Bi2Te3 system. Overall, this work represents a substantial step towards the real thermoelectric application using non-Bi2Te3 materials and devices.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28798-4 Abstract (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:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-28798-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28798-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().