Structural formation of multifunctional NiMoO4 nanorods for thermoelectric applications

We report on the synthesis and characterization of NiMoO4 (NMO) nanorods via the hydrothermal method. The High-Resolution Scanning Electron Microscopy (HRSEM) image reveals the nanorod morphology of NMO. The formation of mixed phase α,β-NMO is confirmed and the crystallite size of the nanorods is measured to be 40 nm from the XRD data. The structural formation of NMO is confirmed by Raman, FTIR, and XPS. The content of Ni, Mo and O was identified from XPS. NMO is optically active in the visible region with the band gap of 3.085 eV. The presence of four oxygen anions in the chemical formula gives the maximum electrical resistivity of 102 Ω m at 313 K and the material exhibits n-type semiconducting nature which is observed through Seebeck measurement and the Hall coefficient. The n-type semiconducting properties are observed due to the material being richer in Mo than Ni. The attained maximum Seebeck value of -159.723 μV K-1 at 513 K is comparable with that of other good thermoelectric materials at low temperatures. A decrease in the value of thermal conductivity was observed as a function of increasing temperature; NMO has the minimum thermal conductivity of 3.851 W m-1 K-1 at 513 K.