Improved thermoelectric properties of SrTiO3-based 3-based ceramic/CNTs composite synthesized via high-temperature and high-pressure method

Composites consisting of two nano-or molecular-scale components tend to exhibit newer properties or characterizations compared to the matrix material. However, they are extremely limited in thermoelectricity due to the difficulty of achieving an extremely homogeneous distribution of the material on such a small scale. In this paper, we successfully prepared a series of composite thermoelectric materials of Sr0.9La0.1Ti0.85Nb0.15O3/carbon nanotubes (CNTs, with contents of 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, and 5.0 wt%). Highly homogeneous dispersion of CNTs was observed in the strontium titanate oxide (SrTiO3) matrix prepared via high-temperature and high-pressure (HPHT) synthesis due to the interaction between SrTiO3 and multi-walled CNTs. The experimental results showed that CNTs were uniformly dispersed in the composite powders synthesized using the HPHT method. Meanwhile, the electrical conductivity increased linearly with the increase in the CNTs content. The power factor reached 684 mu Wm(-1)K(-2) at 973K with 2.5 wt% CNTs composite concentration. This considerable enhancement is attributed to the increase in the charge carrier concentration as well as the higher electron mobility. In addition, the lattice thermal conductivity was suppressed due to enhanced Umklapp scattering. This ultimately leads to a thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, of 0.33 at 973 K. This work opens a new window on the thermoelectric properties of nanocomposite SrTiO3-based thermoelectric materials.