One-step chemical synthesis of ZnO/graphene oxide molecular hybrids for high-temperature thermoelectric applications

ZnO as high-temperature thermoelectric material suffers from high lattice thermal conductivity and poor electrical conductivity. Al is often used to n-dope ZnO to form Zn1-xAlxO (AZO). Owing to very limited Al solubility (less than 2 atom %) in AZO, however, electrical conductivity is difficult to improve further. Moreover, such a low concentration of Al dopants can hardly reduce the thermal conductivity. Here, we propose slightly adding chemically reduced graphene oxides (rGOs) to AZO in various contents to modulate the carrier concentration and simultaneously optimize the electrical and thermal conductivities. Such nanocomposites with rGO embedded in AZO matrix are formed on the molecular level by one-step solution chemistry method. No obvious changes are found in crystalline structures of AZO after introducing rGOs. The rGO inclusions are shown to uniformly mix the AZO matrix that consists of compacted nanoparticles. In such AZO/rGO hybrids, Zn2+ is captured by the rGO, releasing extra electrons and thus increasing electron density, as confirmed by Hall measurements. The phonon-boundary scattering at the interface between AZO and rGO remarkably reduces the lattice thermal conductivity. Therefore, a respectable thermoelectric figure of merit of 0.28 at 900 °C is obtained in these nanocomposites at the rGO content of 1.5 wt %, which is 8 times larger than that of pure ZnO and 60% larger than that of alloyed AZO. This work demonstrates a facile wet chemistry route to produce nanostructured thermoelectric composites in which electrical conductivity can be greatly increased while largely lowering thermal conductivity, collectively enhancing the thermoelectric performance.