Thermoelectricity is the process of directly converting heat into electricity and vice versa, offering an environmentally sustainable means to generate electricity from wasted heat. To enhance the efficiency of this conversion, it's essential to precisely control various structural aspects beyond just the crystal structure. These aspects include defects, grain size, orientation, and interfaces. 

In recent years, solution-based techniques have garnered significant interest as a cost-effective and easily scalable approach for manufacturing high-performance thermoelectric materials. In this method, a powdered material is first prepared in a solution and then subjected to purification and thermal processing to produce the desired dense polycrystalline material. Unlike traditional methods, solution-based syntheses offer an exceptional level of control over various particle properties, including size, shape, crystal structure, composition, and surface chemistry. This precise control over the properties of the powder creates distinct opportunities for crafting thermoelectric materials with precisely tailored microstructural characteristics. In this presentation, we will highlight the opportunities and challenges that this synthetic strategy can bring, in particular we will focus on  metal chalcogenides.