Lone Pair Thermoelectric Sulfur Based Compounds – LISBON

The LISBON applied research project proposed herein aims at advancing the knowledge of sulfide materials with complex crystal structures as efficient thermoelectric materials for the generation of electricity from waste heat generated by industries, road transport, data centers, and others, at a medium temperature range. The scientific approach is based on the investigation of bulk sulfide materials that contain cations with electron lone pair (such as Sb3+, Bi3+, or even Te4+ ions) to take advantage of both a complex crystal structure and the rattling effect to suppress the lattice thermal conductivity. The methodology includes synthesis, powder processing, sintering techniques, structure and microstructure analyses, transport properties measurements, and theoretical calculations. The LISBON project has as main objective to synthesize natural sulfide minerals which usually require high energy (temperatures and pressures) to form, by using original synthesis ways such as hydro/solvothermal or even high-energy ball-milling processes. Those synthesis ways might produce single crystal or nano-crystalline powder materials, which are perfectly suitable for performing cutting-edge structural characterizations such as Pair-Distribution-Function to the CRISMAT lab. The LISBON project requires a Ph.D. student to synthesize materials and to use complementary structural characterization techniques (Pair Distribution Function, Transmission Electron Microscopy, and Neutron Diffraction) to describe, not only the crystal structure of one-unit cell but the crystallographic arrangement of multiple cells. Those “big-box” structural characterizations shall give us useful information regarding the structure-property relationship.