Earth abundant, non-toxic, 3D printed Cu2−xS with high thermoelectric figure of merit

Abstract

The toxicity, earth abundance and manufacturing costs of thermoelectric materials are three leading reasons why thermoelectric generators are not used in wide scale applications. This is the first paper to tackle all three of these problems simultaneously. A pseudo-3D printing technique is combined with Cu_2−xS based inks to yield bulk samples capable of being used in traditional architecture thermoelectric generators. These bulk samples are characterised over a wide temperature range in XPS, which reveals a curing temperature of 550 K yields pure Cu_2−xS samples. The thermoelectric properties of these samples are tested over a wide temperature range, with a peak ZT of 0.63 ± 0.09 being recorded at 966 K. This work gives a significant advancement towards low cost highly efficient non-toxic thermoelectric generators. This work also provides the first route to print Cu_2−xS, a material of much interest to the solar cell, catalysis and biosensor fields.