Fabrication of Nanostructured Materials for Energy Applications: Nanostructured Thermoelectrics and Enhanced Surfaces for Boiling

World energy crisis has triggered more attention to energy saving and energy conversion systems with high efficiency. There is a growing awareness that nanoscience and nanotechnology can have a profound impact on energy generation, conversion, and recovery. Nanotechnology-based solutions are being developed for a wide range of energy problems such as, solar electricity, hydrogen generation and storage, batteries, fuel cells, heat pumps and thermoelectrics. This book deals with the design and fabrication of novel functional materials/architectures for energy-related applications. The study includes two parts: Nanostructured thermoelectric materials for energy conversion and nanostructured metallic surfaces for energy heat transfer. In the first part, the focus is given to the fabrication of novel nanostructured TE materials and architectures including bismuth telluride nanowires/thick films and skutterudite nanocomposites with nanoinclusions. In the second part of the thesis, we developed a nanostructured macro-porous surface for enhancing heat transfer in boiling process.