Heat Transport in Superlattices and Nanocomposites for Thermoelectric Applications

2006 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 104-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gang Chen

Energy transport in nanostructures differs significantly from macrostructures because of classical and quantum size effects on energy carriers. Experimental results show that the thermal conductivity values of nanostructures such as superlattices are significantly lower than that of their bulk constituent materials. The reduction in thermal conductivity led to a large increase in the thermoelectric figure of merit in several superlattice systems. Materials with a large thermoelectric figure of merit can be used to develop efficient solid-state devices that convert waste heat into electricity. Superlattices grown by thin-film deposition techniques, however, are not suitable for large scale applications. Nanocomposites represent one approach that can lead to high thermoelectric figure merit. This paper reviews the current understanding of thermal conductivity reduction mechanisms in superlattices and presents theoretical studies on thermoelectric properties in semiconducting nanocomposites, aiming at developing high efficiency thermoelectric energy conversion materials.

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (02) ◽  
pp. 2050019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Zhang ◽  
M. M. Fan ◽  
C. C. Ruan ◽  
Y. W. Zhang ◽  
X.-J. Li ◽  
...  

[Formula: see text] ceramic samples have a structure similar to phonon glass electronic crystals, and their thermoelectric properties can be effectively adjusted through repeated grinding and sintering. The results show that multi-sintering can make their grain refined and increase their grain boundary, which will effectively increase density and phonon scattering. Finally, multi-sintering can reduce the resistivity and thermal conductivity, thus obviously improve thermoelectric figure of merit [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text]. The optimum [Formula: see text] value of 0.26 is achieved at 923 K by the third sintered sample.


2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 837-843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinfeng Tang ◽  
Lidong Chen ◽  
Takashi Goto ◽  
Toshio Hirai

Single-phase filled skutterudite compounds, CeyFexCo4−xSb12 (x = 0 to 3.0, y = 0 to 0.74), were synthesized by a melting method. The effects of Fe content and Ce filling fraction on the thermoelectric properties of CeyFexCo4−xSb12 were investigated. The lattice thermal conductivity of Ce-saturated CeyFexCo4−xSb12, y being at the maximum corresponding to x, decreased with increasing Fe content (x) and reached its minimum at about x = 1.5. When x was 1.5, lattice thermal conductivity decreased with increasing Ce filling fraction till y = 0.3 and then began to increase after reaching the minimum at y = 0.3. Hole concentration and electrical conductivity of Cey Fe1.5Co2.5Sb12 decreased with increasing Ce filling fraction. The Seebeck coefficient increased with increasing Ce filling fraction. The greatest dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit T value of 1.1 was obtained at 750 K for the composition of Ce0.28Fe1.52Co2.48Sb12.


2003 ◽  
Vol 793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Amagai ◽  
A. Yamamoto ◽  
C. H. Lee ◽  
H. Takazawa ◽  
T. Noguchi ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTWe report transport properties of polycrystalline TMGa3(TM = Fe and Ru) compounds in the temperature range 313K<T<973K. These compounds exhibit semiconductorlike behavior with relatively high Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity, and Hall carrier concentrations at room temperature in the range of 1017- 1018cm−3. Seebeck coefficient measurements reveal that FeGa3isn-type material, while the Seebeck coefficient of RuGa3changes signs rapidly from large positive values to large negative values around 450K. The thermal conductivity of these compounds is estimated to be 3.5Wm−1K−1at room temperature and decreased to 2.5Wm−1K−1for FeGa3and 2.0Wm−1K−1for RuGa3at high temperature. The resulting thermoelectric figure of merit,ZT, at 945K for RuGa3reaches 0.18.


Author(s):  
А.А. Шабалдин ◽  
П.П. Константинов ◽  
Д.А. Курдюков ◽  
Л.Н. Лукьянова ◽  
А.Ю. Самунин ◽  
...  

AbstractNanocomposite thermoelectrics based on Bi_0.45Sb_1.55Te_2.985 solid solution of p -type conductivity are fabricated by the hot pressing of nanopowders of this solid solution with the addition of SiO_2 microparticles. Investigations of the thermoelectric properties show that the thermoelectric power of the nanocomposites increases in a wide temperature range of 80–420 K, while the thermal conductivity considerably decreases at 80–320 K, which, despite a decrease in the electrical conductivity, leads to an increase in the thermoelectric efficiency in the nanostructured material without the SiO_2 addition by almost 50% (at 300 K). When adding SiO_2, the efficiency decreases. The initial thermoelectric fabricated without nanostructuring, in which the maximal thermoelectric figure of merit ZT = 1 at 390 K, is most efficient at temperatures above 350 K.


Author(s):  
Ч.И. Абилов ◽  
М.Ш. Гасанова ◽  
Н.Т. Гусейнова ◽  
Э.К. Касумова

The results of studying the temperature dependences of electrical conductivity, thermoelectric coefficient, Hall mobility of charge carriers, total and electronic thermal conductivity, as well as phonon thermal resistance of alloys of (CuInSe2)1-x(In2Te3)x solid solutions at x=0.005 and 0.0075 are presented. The values ​​of these parameters for certain temperatures were used to calculate the values ​​of the thermoelectric figure of merit of the indicated compositions. It turned out that as the temperature rises, the thermoelectric figure of merit tends to grow strongly, from which it can be concluded that these materials can be used in the manufacture of thermoelements.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adul Harnwunggmoung ◽  
Ken Kurosaki ◽  
Hiroaki Muta ◽  
Shinsuke Yamanaka

AbstractCoSb3 is known as a skutterudite compound that could exhibit high thermoelectric figure of merit. However, the thermal conductivity of CoSb3 is relatively high. In order to enhance the thermoelectric performance of this compound, we tried to reduce the thermal conductivity of CoSb3 by substitution of Rh for Co and by Tl-filling into the voids. The polycrystalline samples of (Co,Rh)Sb3 and Tl-filled CoSb3 were prepared and the thermoelectric properties such as the Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity, and thermal conductivity were measured in the temperature range from room temperature to 750 K. The Rh substitution for Co reduced the lattice thermal conductivity, due to the alloy scattering effect. The minimum value of the lattice thermal conductivity was 4 Wm-1K-1 at 750 K obtained for (Co0.7Rh0.3)Sb3. Also the lattice thermal conductivity rapidly decreased with increasing the Tl-filling ratio. T10.25Co4Sb12 exhibited the best ZT values; the maximum ZT was 0.9 obtained at 600 K.


Materials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 1529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amin Nozariasbmarz ◽  
Jerzy S. Krasinski ◽  
Daryoosh Vashaee

Thermoelectric materials could play a crucial role in the future of wearable electronic devices. They can continuously generate electricity from body heat. For efficient operation in wearable systems, in addition to a high thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, the thermoelectric material must have low thermal conductivity and a high Seebeck coefficient. In this study, we successfully synthesized high-performance nanocomposites of n-type Bi2Te2.7Se0.3, optimized especially for body heat harvesting and power generation applications. Different techniques such as dopant optimization, glass inclusion, microwave radiation in a single mode microwave cavity, and sintering conditions were used to optimize the temperature-dependent thermoelectric properties of Bi2Te2.7Se0.3. The effects of these techniques were studied and compared with each other. A room temperature thermal conductivity as low as 0.65 W/mK and high Seebeck coefficient of −297 μV/K were obtained for a wearable application, while maintaining a high thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, of 0.87 and an average zT of 0.82 over the entire temperature range of 25 °C to 225 °C, which makes the material appropriate for a variety of power generation applications.


1997 ◽  
Vol 478 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Caillat ◽  
A. Borshchevsky ◽  
J. -P. Fleurial

Abstractβ-Zn4Sb3 was recently identified at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a new high performance p-type thermoelectric material with a maximum dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit ZT of 1.4 at a temperature of 673K. A usual approach, used for many state-of-the-art thermoelectric materials, to further improve ZT values is to alloy β-Zn4Sb3 with isostructural compounds because of the expected decrease in lattice thermal conductivity. We have grown Zn4−xCdxSb3 crystals with 0.2≤x<1.2 and measured their thermal conductivity from 10 to 500K. The thermal conductivity values of Zn4−xCdxSb3 alloys are significantly lower than those measured for β-Zn4Sb3 and are comparable to its calculated minimum thermal conductivity. A strong atomic disorder is believed to be primarily at the origin of the very low thermal conductivity of these materials which are also fairly good electrical conductors and are therefore excellent candidates for thermoelectric applications.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document