Skutterudite Unicouple Characterization for Energy Harvesting Applications [electronic resource]

• Ngôn ngữ: eng
• Ký hiệu phân loại: 621.3819 Electrical, magnetic, optical, communications, computer engineering; electronics, lighting
• Thông tin xuất bản: Washington, D.C. : Oak Ridge, Tenn. : United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Science ; Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy, 2012
• Mô tả vật lý: Size: p. 245-251 : , digital, PDF file.
• Bộ sưu tập: Metadata
• ID: 255944
• Chủ đề: 1. 30 direct energy conversion; 2. Energy conversion; 3. Energy devices; 4. Energy harvesting; 5. Skutterudite; 6. Solar energy; 7. Thermoelectric energy

Tóm tắt

 Skutterudites are enticing thermoelectric materials due to their high figure of merit, ZT, and good thermomechanical properties. Our work reports the effective figure of merit, ZT<
 sub>
 eff<
 /sub>
 , and the efficiency of skutterudite legs and a unicouple working under a large temperature difference. The p- and n-type legs are fabricated with electrodes sintered directly to the skutterudite during a hot pressing process. CoSi<
 sub>
 2<
 /sub>
  is used as the electrode for the n-type skutterudite (Yb<
 sub>
 0.35<
 /sub>
 Co<
 sub>
 4<
 /sub>
 Sb<
 sub>
 12<
 /sub>
 ) and Co2Si for the p-type skutterudite (NdFe<
 sub>
 3.5<
 /sub>
 Co<
 sub>
 0.5<
 /sub>
 Sb<
 sub>
 12<
 /sub>
 ). A technique is developed to measure the ZT<
 sub>
 eff<
 /sub>
  of individual legs and the efficiency of a unicouple. An ZT<
 sub>
 eff<
 /sub>
  of 0.74 is determined for the n-type legs operating between 52 and 595 �C, and an ZT<
 sub>
 eff<
 /sub>
  of 0.51 for the p-type legs operating between 77 and 600 �C. The efficiency of the p?n unicouple is determined to be 9.1% operating between ~70 and 550 �C.