The era of thermoelectric materials has begun in the search of clean, green and renewable anticipated energy resources. Thermoelectric materials are attracting a lot of spotlights by directly converting waste heat in electricity and could be a valuable part in world's energy emergence. Present review provides an insight into the emerging boron nitride (BN) structures on the basis of their thermoelectric properties. In the recent years, advances in the synthesis of boron nitride based structures which are analogous to carbon, have attracted significant interest by the researchers. The electronic, optical and vibrational properties of boron nitride structures are widely studied, while the thermoelectric properties have not been thoroughly investigated. However, over the past years, a significant effort has been directed towards the enhancement of their thermoelectric properties. The higher the value of figure of merit (ZT), the greater is the production of electricity. Different technologies were adopted by researchers in developing the thermoelectric efficiency. Due to the interconnection between thermoelectric parameters it is difficult to achieve ZT up to 2 or 3. Commercially existing Pb–Te and Bi–Te based thermoelectric materials provide good thermoelectric efficiency but are toxic, denser and of high cost. Therefore, there is a need of environment friendly, reusable and low cost thermoelectric materials. An extensive review of the thermoelectric characteristics of bulk phases of BN (like a-BN, c-BN, and w-BN), hexagonal-BN (h-BN), boron nitride nanotube (BNNT), boron nitride nanoribbon (ABNNR and ZBNNR), boron nitride quantum dots and boron nitride composites is presented. This evolution in boron nitride based materials will elucidate their potential for developing high-performance next-generation thermoelectric devices.

热电材料的时代已经开始寻找清洁，绿色和可再生的预期能源。通过将废热直接转化为电，热电材料吸引了许多关注，并可能成为世界能源兴起的重要组成部分。本篇综述基于其热电特性对新兴的氮化硼（BN）结构进行了深入分析。近年来，研究人员对类似于碳的氮化硼基结构的合成取得了极大的兴趣。氮化硼结构的电子，光学和振动性质已得到广泛研究，而热电性质尚未得到充分研究。但是，在过去的几年中，已经致力于提高其热电性能。品质因数（ZT）值越高，发电量就越大。研究人员在开发热电效率方面采用了不同的技术。由于热电参数之间的相互联系，很难实现高达2或3的ZT。市售的基于Pb-Te和Bi-Te的热电材料提供了良好的热电效率，但有毒，致密且成本高。因此，需要环保，可重复使用和低成本的热电材料。对BN（例如a-BN，c-BN和w-BN），六角形BN（h-BN），氮化硼纳米管（BNNT），氮化硼纳米带（ABNNR和ZBNNR），提出了氮化硼量子点和氮化硼复合材料。氮化硼基材料的这种发展将阐明其开发高性能下一代热电器件的潜力。