Remarks on the improvement of performances in thermoelectric oxides

Resumen del trabajo presentado a la International Conference on Condensed Matter and Materials Science (ICCMMS), celebrada en Adana (Turquia) del 11 al 15 de octubre de 2017.Thermoelectric (TE) harvesting of wasted heat should play an important role in a sustainable future, due to its simplicity, scalability, and self-sustainability in all kind of applications: remote/attended or mobile/static ones. The development of oxide-based TE materials is important when considering that they are cheaper, and possess lower toxicity than the traditional ones. Moreover, oxides can be used at high temperatures without protecting atmospheres, opening new opportunities for energy recovering TE devices. On the other hand, it is desirable to tune up their TE performances before integration in practical applications. In this work, some insights on the p-type CoO-based materials will be presented, making a special emphasis on their practical applications. Moreover, the exploitation of structural, microstructural, and chemical features of these materials to improve their performances will be highlighted. Among these typical possibilities, the effect of synthesis methods, doping, and texturing, will be presented. Furthermore, other newly developed methods applied with great success will be mentioned. Finally, these techniques and improvements will be evaluated through their possible massive applications.Peer Reviewe