Paper Title
Enhancing Thermoelectric Responce of NIO Through Nanostructuring

Abstract
A large amount of heat wasted in the universe through various sources which can be reused by converting it into electricity through thermoelectric effect. Solid state devices made up of thermoelectric materials are considered as a potential candidate for this waste heat recovery. Currently available thermoelectric materials do not exhibit sufficient efficiency; hence the TE devices are not common in use for general applications. Therefore, the need for developing high-efficiency TE materials for waste-heat-recovery systems is urgent and will bring vast economic and environmental benefits. Despite many decades of efforts, the efficiency denoted by ZT of the commercialized TE materials is still in the range of 1 -2, which limits the wide-scale application of these devices. The material parameters influencing ZT are interdependent which makes it very difficult to manipulate them for enhancing their ZT value. However, some improvements have been observed in ZT, primarily due to a reduction in lattice thermal conductivity. The scattering of phonons by introducing nanostructures in the lattice leads to the improvement in ZT, as the quantum confinement of charge carriers takes place at the nanoscale. Nanostructuring of materials are therefore considered to improve TE efficiency and exhaustive research is being done to develop nanostructured materials with a higher figure of merit. Conventionally, to realize this, heavy elements were used for low thermal conductivity. In general, however, heavy elements are often rare elements, the use of which prevents the industrial application to thermoelectric materials. Recently, the introduction of nanostructures in metal oxides that can reduce the thermal conductivity is expected as a promising approach for the realization of rare-element-free thermoelectric material. The properties of metal oxides are affected by the control over the morphology, structure and size which can be experimentally optimized to obtain desired results for specific application. The present study considers transition metal oxide i. e., Nickel Oxide for studying and improving its TE performance. NiO exists in various oxidation states, it is thermally and chemically stable. So it is durable and suitable for developing as thermoelectric alternative material. We are expecting that this study would paw the path for overcoming the scientific challenges in this field. Keywords - Thermoelectric Properties, Nano Particles, Thermal Conductivity, Electrical Conductivity, Power Factor.