Recent progress in half-Heusler thermoelectric materials

•Summarize the recent progress and advances in HH thermoelectric materials.•Preparing nanocomposites could reduce thermal conductivity.•Introducing enhance phonon scattering could further reduce the thermal conductivity.•Forming ternary systems to reducing the cost effectively.•The new class of HHs presents another opportunity to further optimize the HH system.

Half-Heusler (HH) thermoelectric (TE) materials have been attracting extensive research interest over the last two decades, owing to their thermal stability, mechanical strength, and moderate ZT. This material system are potential candidates for medium to high temperature applications, which is close to the temperature range of most industrial waste heat sources. In this mini-review article, we briefly summarize the recent progress and advances in HH thermoelectric materials. Some effectively available approaches, such as HH nanocomposites to reduce thermal conductivity, using larger atomic mass and size differences to enhance phonon scattering to further reduce the thermal conductivity, forming ternary systems following the cost effective approach. In addition, new thermoelectric HH members are also discussed in this article, which points out that many new HH compounds may be possible for TE applications.

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