Abstract: Nanostructured bulk thermoelectrics have not been paid
the attention they deserve for quite a long time probably due
to the limitations of methods available for producing TE
materials. We have established an international consortium
and worked extensively on the fabrication, evaluation and
modeling of nanostructured CoSb3 based skutterudite
materials. Selection of material is based on the theoretically
predicted lower thermal conductivity of the material which in
turn could lead to an increase in the materials’ figure of merit.
We proved the fact that nanostructured bulk skutterudites
have much lower thermal conductivities than their larger size
counterparts. The work also focused on improving the
electrical conductivity by introducing substitutional and
interstitial doping atoms into the lattice. The influence of
addition of highly conducting metallic phases like Au, and Sb
as well as insulator phases like CoSb2 and ZrO2 on the
transport properties have been investigated on few samples. A
very high ZT value of 0.65 was obtained for an unfilled
skutterudite material with a combined doping of Ni and Te for
Co and Sb respectively.
This paper summarizes the work performed with the
adapted synthesis approach, some representative results, and
future prospects.
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-04-11
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 1
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot