Thermoelectric materials could play a crucial role in the future of wearable electronic devices. They can continuously generate electricity from body heat. For efficient operation in wearable systems, in addition to a high thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, the thermoelectric material must have low thermal conductivity and a high Seebeck coefficient. In this study, we successfully synthesized high-performance nanocomposites of n-type Bi2Te2.7Se0.3, optimized especially for body heat harvesting and power generation applications. Different techniques such as dopant optimization, glass inclusion, microwave radiation in a single mode microwave cavity, and sintering conditions were used to optimize the temperature-dependent thermoelectric properties of Bi2Te2.7Se0.3. The effects of these techniques were studied and compared with each other. A room temperature thermal conductivity as low as 0.65 W/mK and high Seebeck coefficient of −297 μV/K were obtained for a wearable application, while maintaining a high thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, of 0.87 and an average zT of 0.82 over the entire temperature range of 25 °C to 225 °C, which makes the material appropriate for a variety of power generation applications.
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机译：热电材料可能在可穿戴电子设备的未来中起关键作用。它们可以不断地通过人体热量发电。为了在可穿戴系统中高效运行，除了高热电性能指标zT之外，热电材料还必须具有低导热系数和高塞贝克系数。在这项研究中，我们成功地合成了n型Bi2Te2.7Se0.3的高性能纳米复合材料，该复合材料特别针对人体热量收集和发电应用进行了优化。使用诸如掺杂剂优化，玻璃夹杂物，单模微波腔中的微波辐射以及烧结条件之类的不同技术来优化Bi2Te2.7Se0.3随温度变化的热电性能。研究并比较了这些技术的效果。对于可穿戴应用，获得了低至0.65 W / mK的室温热导率和-297μV/ K的高塞贝克系数，同时在整个过程中保持了0.87的高热电性能系数zT和0.82的平均zT。整个温度范围为25°C至225°C，这使得该材料适用于各种发电应用。
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