Theoretical Investigation for Interpreting Heat Capacity of Thermoelectric Materials Using Debye–Einstein Approximation

Abstract

Thermoelectric materials are of growing interest to renewable energy technologies and applications. Because of the work progress of thermoelectric materials, experimental and theoretical methods in evaluating thermodynamic behavior and properties of these materials play a significant role. As is known, heat capacity is one of the fundamental thermodynamic properties of thermoelectric materials that should be foreseen accurately. The Debye–Einstein approximation is one of the efficient methods for calculating the heat capacity of materials without any restriction in their use. For this purpose, this work aims at the heat capacity calculation of PbTe, PbS and PbSe thermoelectric materials using the Debye–Einstein approximation.