Thermoelectric energy converters are mostly investigated to recover waste heat from sources such as power plants, factories, vehicles or even transform heat from human bodies into electric power. Besides the energy efficiency of these devices, the selection of materials and processes are also important towards the high-priority pathway of environmentally friendly, earth-abundant, and low-cost materials. Therefore, systems such as silicides attract much attention since they exhibit very promising thermoelectric properties meeting at the same time relative environmental priorities. Furthermore, the proper use of materials as well as the possible reuse/recycling of expensive lost materials from several industries are also main priorities. PV industry is a typical example where high purity Si is required and, at the same time, large amount is wasted as kerf during wafer cutting. 

In this work, our efforts to synthesize thermoelectric silicides based on recycled Si-kerf are presented. n-type and p-type Mg₂Si- based materials as well as p-type Higher Manganese Silicides were prepared using commercial and recyclable Si. The materials were fully characterized in terms of structure and thermoelectric properties and selected compositions were used for prototype module fabrication.