Abstract:
Copper sulfide is a multifunctional material. Copper sulfides are known to be used in photoelectric converters, in plasmonics, in active electrodes of batteries and supercapacitors, etc.
The excellent thermoelectric properties of copper sulfide are well-known too. The purpose of this
study is to investigate the thermoelectric performance of nanocomposite copper sulfide contained
monoclinic Cu2S and tetragonal Cu1.96S phase. According to scanning electron microscopy, the
average particle size of the synthesized powder was about 373 nm. The Li0.11Cu1.89S sample
showed an electronic conductivity of 50–180 S/cm, a Seebeck coefficient of 0.04–0.31 mV/K in
the range of 300–700 K, and high power factor 5.8 μW K− 2
cm− 1 at 672 K. Total thermal con
ductivity decreases with increasing temperature from 0.61 to 0.22 W•K− 1
m− 1 in the range of
300–700 K. Such low thermal conductivity and high power factor made it possible to achieve an
extremely high dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit ZT = 1.76 at 672 K, which allows to
consider the Li0.11Cu1.89S alloy as a promising thermoelectric material.
