It is expected that thermoelectric (TE) harvesting of wasted heat will play an important role among the developed technologies for a sustainable future, due to its inherent operational simplicity, excellent scalability, and selfsustainability in all kind of applications: remote/attended or mobile/static ones. The development of oxide TE materials is of the main importance, as they are cheaper, and less toxic than the materials used in the traditional TE modules. On the other hand, oxides can be used at high temperature without the need of protecting atmospheres, opening new opportunities for the energy recovering TE devices. On the other hand, it is desirable to achieve higher TE performances in these materials before using them in practical applications. In the last years one of the main activities of our group has been centered in developing and improving TE performances in p- and, more recently, n-type TE materials. These improvements have been performed via different synthesis, doping, and/or conformation processes obtaining, in some cases, the highest performances achieved in these materials so far. In this work, some examples of succeeding techniques, with the main focus in their future industrial application, will be presented. Among these techniques, the associated to synthesis, doping, texturing, and forming will be mentioned, as wel as other with great success in other ceramic materials, adapted to thermoelectrics.

Resumen del trabajo presentado al 1st Iberian Thermoelectric Workshop (ITW), celebrado en Oporto (Portugal) los dias 7 y 8 de septiembre de 2017.

Peer Reviewed