Large-scale surfactant-free synthesis of p-type SnTe nanoparticles for thermoelectric applications

A facile one-pot aqueous solution method has been developed for the fast and straightforward synthesis of SnTe nanoparticles in more than ten gram quantities per batch. The synthesis involves boiling an alkaline Na₂SnO₂ solution and a NaHTe solution for short time scales, in which the NaOH concentration and reaction duration play vital roles in controlling the phase purity and particle size, respectively. Spark plasma sintering of the SnTe nanoparticles produces nanostructured compacts that have comparable thermoelectric performance to bulk counterparts synthesised by more time- and energy-intensive methods. This approach, combining an energy-efficient, surfactant-free solution synthesis with spark plasma sintering, provides a simple, rapid and inexpensive route to p-type SnTe nanostructured materials.