Solvent-assisted synthesis of AgSe and AgS nanoparticles on carbon fabric for enhanced thermoelectric performance.

The challenge of developing low-cost, highly flexible, and high-performance thermoelectric (TE) materials persists due to the low thermoelectric efficiency of conducting polymers and the inflexibility of inorganic materials. In this study, we successfully integrated AgSe and AgS with highly conductive carbon fabric (CF) to produce a flexible thermoelectric material. A facile one-step solvothermal method was employed to synthesize the AgSe-CF and AgS-CF, which were then subjected to X-ray analysis to confine the phase formation of AgSe and AgS on the carbon fabric. The analysis revealed that AgSe and AgS nanoparticles were tightly packed on the surface of carbon fabric, and compositional analysis confirmed the interaction between the material and carbon fabric. The thermoelectric properties of AgSe-CF and AgS-CF were significantly altered due to carrier concentration and mobility variations, resulting in a low power factor of 6.7 μW/mK for AgSe-CF and a high-power factor of 24 μW/mK at 373 K for AgS-CF. The growth of AgSe-CF and AgS-CF on carbon fabric led to an enhancement in their thermoelectric properties. Further, TE legs were fabricated using the AgSe-CF (p-type) and AgS-CF (n-type), and the fabricated legs exhibited an output voltage of ∼20 mV to ∼86.65 mV at a temperature gradient (ΔT) of 3-8 K. This work represents a cutting-edge approach to the fabrication of high-performance, wearable thermoelectric devices.