Innovative Directions in Thermoelectric Materials: Development and Characterization Approaches in Nano-Scale

A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Chemistry at Nanoscale".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 February 2026 | Viewed by 680

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cyprus, 1678 Nicosia, Cyprus
Interests: thermoelectric materials; synthesis of inorganic materials; nano-structured materials; nano-composites; structural characterization; electrical and thermal transport properties

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Guest Editor
Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares (C2TN), Departamento de Engenharia e Ciências Nucleares (DECN), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Campus Tecnológico e Nuclear, 2695-066 Bobadela, Portugal
Interests: solid state chemistry; inorganic chemistry; materials science; phase diagram studies; exploratory synthesis; design of new materials; pnictide and chalcogenide compounds; nanostructured materials; thermoelectric materials

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, the growing need for energy consumption and the environmental demands for the decrease of carbon footprint make the development of new and sustainable energy technologies ever more urgent. Thermoelectrics have the potential to provide considerable energy savings since vast amounts of energy, ca. 66% globally, are lost to the environment as waste heat through industrial processes. Thermoelectric (TE) devices are able to convert directly heat into clean electrical power, without CO2 emissions. Considerable efforts have been made in recent years to develop new, low-cost, earth-abundant, and environmentally friendly materials with high TE efficiencies.

This Special Issue aims to address a range of new material design strategies and approaches related to the development, engineering and characterization of advanced thermoelectrics in nano-scale, including nano-structuring, nano-materials, nano-composites, low-dimensionality strategies, band structure engineering, hierarchical phonon scattering, etc. Research topics may include (but not limited to) novel synthetic methods, emphasizing sustainable and environmentally friendly concepts, advanced characterization techniques, involving investigations in atomic-, nano-, and micro-structure, electrical and thermal transport property measurements as well as computational approaches.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Panagiotis Mangelis
Dr. António Pereira Gonçalves
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • thermoelectrics
  • nano-materials
  • nanostructuring
  • nano-composites
  • doping
  • figure-of-merit
  • Seebeck coefficient

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 1762 KB  
Article
Synthesis, Crystal Structure and Thermoelectric Properties of the Type-I Clathrate Sn38Sb8I8
by Nikolaos Moutzouris, Panagiotis Mangelis, Nikolaos Kelaidis, Nagia S. Tagiara, Emmanuel Klontzas, Ioannis Koutselas, Panagiotis Oikonomopoulos, Themistoklis Sfetsas, Theodora Kyratsi and Andreas Kaltzoglou
Nanomaterials 2025, 15(22), 1727; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano15221727 - 16 Nov 2025
Viewed by 469
Abstract
Semiconducting clathrates are a distinct class of inclusion compounds with considerable interest for thermoelectric applications. We report here the synthesis, crystal structure and thermoelectric properties of Sn38Sb8I8. The compound was synthesized via planetary ball milling of the [...] Read more.
Semiconducting clathrates are a distinct class of inclusion compounds with considerable interest for thermoelectric applications. We report here the synthesis, crystal structure and thermoelectric properties of Sn38Sb8I8. The compound was synthesized via planetary ball milling of the corresponding elements for 6 h and then sintering of amorphous mixture at 620 K for 3 days. The crystal structure of the polycrystalline product was determined via X-ray powder diffraction and Rietveld refinement as a type-I clathrate (a = 12.0390(2), space group Pm-3n, No. 223) with mixed-occupied Sn/Sb framework sites and fully occupied I guest sites. Further analysis on the chemical composition, nanomorphology and vibrational modes of the material was carried out via Induced-Coupled-Plasma–Mass Spectrometry, SEM/EDX microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, respectively. Thermoelectric measurements were performed on hot-pressed samples with ca. 98% of the crystallographic density. The clathrate compound behaves as an n-type semiconductor with a band gap of 0.737 eV and exhibits a maximum ZT of 0.0016 at 473 K. Theoretical calculations on the formation enthalpy, electron density of states and transport properties provide insights into the experimentally observed physical behavior. Full article
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