Thermoelectric Properties of Bi Cd and Cr Substituted Cu12sb4s13 Tetrahedrite Material

Abstract

In the Introduction, a brief description of thermoelectric energy conversion, newlinematerials and applications are discussed. Bi2Te3, PbTe, CoSb3 and SiGe are the few state newlineof the art thermoelectric materials having a high zT (typically gt 1). Recently, the ternary newlineand quaternary copper chalcogenides are found to be suitable candidates for the newlinethermoelectric application. These materials gain huge attention due to earth abundance newlineand are mineral based compounds. According to the literature, tetrahedrite (Cu12Sb4S13) newlineis the potential thermoelectric material with reported zT~1. In the present work the newlinetetrahedrite compound is prepared with different substitution elements to study their newlineeffect on thermoelectric properties of tetrahedrite. The pure tetrahedrite is a p-type newlinedegenerate semiconductor. Hence the substituents with higher oxidation state are newlinesubstituted in Cu and Sb site to reduce the carrier concentration in order to obtain the newlineoptimum Fermi level. In addition, the compensation of carriers will also reduce the newlineelectronic part of thermal conductivity. The substituents can also create the mass newlinefluctuation scattering of phonons which reduces the lattice thermal conductivity newline