Nanostructuring of p- and n-type skutterudites reaching figures of merit of approximately 1.3 and 1.6, respectively
- Author(s)
- G. Rogl, A. Grytsiv, P. Rogl, E. Bauer, M. Hochenhofer, R. Anbalagan, R. C. Mallik, E. Schafler
- Abstract
Thermoelectric (TE) conversion of waste heat into useful electricity demands optimized thermal and electrical transport in the leg material over a wide temperature range. In order to gain a reasonably high figure of merit (ZT) as well as high thermal-electric conversion efficiency, various conditions of the starting material were studied: industrially produced skutterudite powders of p-type DD
y(Fe
1-xCo
x)
4Sb
12 (DD: didymium) and n-type (Mm, Sm)
yCo
4Sb
12 (Mm: mischmetal) were used. After a rather fast reaction-melting technique, the bulk was crushed and sieved with various strainers in order to obtain particles below the respective mesh sizes, followed by ball-milling under three different conditions. The dependence of the TE properties (after hot pressing) on the micro/nanosized particles, grains and crystallites was investigated. Optimized conditions resulted in an increase of ZT for bulk material to current record-high values: from ZT ∼ 1.1 to ZT ∼ 1.3 at 775 K for p-type and from ZT ∼ 1.0 to ZT ∼ 1.6 at 800 K for n-type, resulting in respective efficiencies (300-850 K) of η > 13% and η ∼ 16%.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Physical Chemistry, Physics of Nanostructured Materials
- External organisation(s)
- Indian Institute of Science, Treibacher Industrie AG, Technische Universität Wien
- Journal
- Acta Materialia
- Volume
- 76
- Pages
- 434-448
- No. of pages
- 15
- ISSN
- 1359-6454
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2014.05.051
- Publication date
- 09-2014
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 104017 Physical chemistry, 103018 Materials physics, 103009 Solid state physics
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Ceramics and Composites, Metals and Alloys, Polymers and Plastics
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/nanostructuring-of-p-and-ntype-skutterudites-reaching-figures-of-merit-of-approximately-13-and-16-respectively(551453d7-fe2d-4d9c-a578-c446343f1de6).html