Recent advances, challenges, and perspective of copper-based liquid-like
thermoelectric chalcogenides: A review
Abstract
The liquid-like thermoelectric materials have fascinated extensive
attention in the field of waste heat recovery into useful energy. In
this aspect, di-chalcogenides Cu2X were considered superionic
thermoelectric materials due to their highly disordered degree of Cu-ion
in the lattice, which realizes the ultralow thermal conductivity.
However, their rigid sublattice can decently maintain the electrical
performance, and thus make this group distinct from the other
state-of-the-art thermoelectric materials. This review summarizes the
well-designed strategies to realize the impressive performance in
thermoelectric materials and their modules by linking the adopted
approaches, with the moderate design of the device. Some recent reports
are selected to outline the fundamentals, underlined challenges,
outlooks, and future development of Cu2(S, Se, Te) liquid-like
thermoelectric materials. We expect that this review will cover the
needs of future researchers in choosing some potential materials to
further explore thermoelectricity in other energy storage and efficient
conversion technologies.