Multiscale architectures boosting thermoelectric performance of copper sulfide compound

Owing to their high performance and earth abundance, copper sulfides (Cu2−xS) have attracted wide attention as a promising medium-temperature thermoelectric material. Nanostructure and grain-boundary engineering are explored to tune the electrical transport and phonon scattering of Cu2−xS based on the liquid-like copper ion. Here multiscale architecture-engineered Cu2−xS are fabricated by a room-temperature wet chemical synthesis combining mechanical mixing and spark plasma sintering. The observed electrical conductivity in the multiscale architecture-engineered Cu2−xS is four times as much as that of the Cu2−xS sample at 800 K, which is attributed to the potential energy filtering effect at the new grain boundaries. Moreover, the multiscale architecture in the sintered Cu2−xS increases phonon scattering and results in a reduced lattice thermal conductivity of 0.2 W·m−1·K−1 and figure of merit (zT) of 1.0 at 800 K. Such a zT value is one of the record values in copper sulfide produced by chemical synthesis. These results suggest that the introduction of nanostructure and formation of new interface are effective strategies for the enhancement of thermoelectric material properties. Supplementary Information The online version of this article (10.1007/s12598-020-01698-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.