Universal Relation for Thermoelectric Figure of Merit of Two-Phase Composites
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63527/1607-8829-2025-2-17-24Keywords:
composites, isomorphism theory, effective thermoelectric properties, effective thermoelectric figure of meritAbstract
In the paper, a universal expression for the effective thermoelectric figure of merit of a composite two-phase material is found based on the isomorphism method. It is shown that to determine the effective thermoelectric figure of merit, a set of values of local kinetic coefficients of the phases, namely electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and thermoEMF, and the effective value of the thermoEMF coefficient is quite sufficient to use. To determine the thermoelectric figure of merit, it is not necessary to know the effective coefficients of electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity. Therefore, the effective figure of merit does not depend on the choice of approximation (effective medium approximation (EMA), flow theory, Maxwell approximation, etc.) for calculating the effective values of electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity.
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