In 1993, Hicks and Dresselhaus [Thermoelectric figure of merit of a one-dimensional conductor, Phys. Rev. B 47, 16631 (1993).] suggested that Bi nanowires could result in values of the thermoelectric figure of merit zT > 1. The Dresselhaus group also calculated a ternary phase diagram for Bi1-xSbx nanowires as a function of x and wire diameter. This manuscript reports a wet-chemical method to synthesize Bi1-xSbx-silica nanowire composites. Resistivity, Hall electron concentration, electron mobility, Seebeck and Nernst coefficients, and thermal conductivity of composites are measured and compared to bulk polycrystalline Bi1-xSbx samples prepared either by ingot casting or by the same wet chemistry but without nanostructuring. A clear increase of the thermopower in 20-nm Bi94Sb6-silica is reported when compared to bulk samples, and the values are among the highest found in the literature from 300 to 380 K, even though the electron concentration is higher than in the bulk. This suggests that consistent with theory, size quantization is responsible for the thermopower increase
