Investigating the thermoelectric properties of mxene titanium carbide

The depletion of non-renewable energies for the future generations and the increasing temperature of the earth have forced researchers to investigate the alternatives of these energies. A lot of energy wastage in the devices used today led scientists to turn these energies into useful energies. The results of the research show that thermoelectric materials, which are a type of solid state energy converters with a combination of thermal electrical and semiconducting properties that lead to the conversion of waste thermal energy into electricity, can be a suitable alternative according to the definitions. Two-dimensional materials have attracted the attention of many researchers due to their unique features such as a very high specific surface. A group of two-dimensional materials that have been discovered are mxenes. Mxenes are a new range of materials obtained by using Max phases. These materials usually have a metal element from intermediate metals, generally titanium or chromium, along with carbon or nitrogen and a functional group such as fluorine, oxygen or hydroxide. According to Altenkirch's theory, the quality of thermoelectric materials is determined by coefficients of Seebeck and thermal conductivity. In this work, Boltzmann's semi-classical transport theory has been used in the form of "Boltztrap" software package to calculate transport coefficients. In many cases, this theory has answers that agree very well with experimental results. "Quantum Espresso" software package has been used to check the structural properties of titanium carbide and to use it in the input files of Boltz Trap code.