Thermoelectric devices convert a heat flux directly into electrical power. They afford opportunities to achieve efficiency savings in a variety of applications, through the conversion of otherwise waste heat into useful electrical energy. Operated in reverse mode, they provide effective thermal management in areas ranging from cooling of electronic components to battery conditioning in electric vehicles. Implementation of thermoelectric technology requires materials with improved performance and stability, containing readily-available and inexpensive elements. A range of thermoelectric materials for use in different temperature regimes has emerged. Knowledge of the complex relationship between composition, structure and physical properties is central to understanding the performance of these advanced materials.

This book provides both an introduction to the field of thermoelectrics and a survey of the state-of-the-art. Chapters review the important new families of advanced materials that have emerged and taken the field beyond traditional thermoelectric materials such as Bi₂Te₃, PbTe and SiGe. The emphasis is on the relationship between chemical composition, structure over a range of length scales and the physical properties that underlie performance.

Edited by a leader in the field, and with contributions from global experts, Inorganic Thermoelectric Materials serves as an introduction to thermoelectric materials and is accessible to advanced undergraduates and postgraduates, as well as experienced researchers.

Anthony Powell is Professor of Solid-State Chemistry at the University of Reading (UoR). He holds the degrees of MA and D.Phil from the University of Oxford. His first academic appointment was at Heriot-Watt University, where he was successively Lecturer, Reader and Professor in Chemistry. In 2013, he moved to the University of Reading as Head of the Department of Chemistry a position he held until January 2018. His research interests include structural, electronic and magnetic properties of chalcogenides, thermoelectric materials, neutron scattering and solvothermal synthesis of novel solids. He has held a Royal Society of Edinburgh Support Research Fellowship and a Scottish Enterprise Proof-of-Concept award for work in thermoelectric materials. He was also technical lead on the FP7 InnovTEG program for Thermoelectric energy recovery and co-chairs the UK Thermoelectric Network (TEMPEST), established with EPSRC support. He has published widely on functional materials, including 30 papers on chalcogenides and skutterudites for thermoelectric applications. He regularly contributes to meetings of the thermoelectric community and has delivered eleven invited lectures at meetings in the UK and overseas since 2016, including The 15th International Conference on Advanced Materials, Kyoto, Japan (2017) and The 15th European Conference on Thermoelectrics, Padua, Italy (2017).

Introduction; Synthesis and property measurements of thermoelectric materials; Theoretical foundations and modeling of inorganic thermoelectric materials; Nanostructuring effects in bulk thermoelectrics and their composites; High performance thermoelectric energy conversion based on metal chalcogenides; Intermetallic Thermoelectrics - Design and Preparation of half-Heuslers, Skutterudites and Zintl-type Materials