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Thermoelectric performance of tellurium and sulfur double-substituted skutterudite materials

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Abstract

Two series of skutterudite materials, Co4Sb11.3Te0.7−x S x (x = 0.07–0.2) and Co4Sb12−x S x (x = 0.07–0.15), were synthesized through solid state reaction and consolidated by spark plasma sintering. The samples were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, electron probe analysis, and measurements of electrical conductivity, Hall coefficient, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity. The results indicate that sulfur in Co4Sb12−x S x most likely forms the CoSbS compound and is unlikely to get into the CoSb3 lattice, while it can dissolve in Co4Sb12−x Te x compounds due to the radius compensation when fabricated by the methods in this study. The lattice thermal conductivity decreases from 2.07 Wm−1 K−1 for tellurium single-doped Co4Sb11.3Te0.7 to 1.46–1.67 Wm−1 K−1 for Co4Sb11.3Te0.7−x S x (x = 0.07–0.20) at 800 K. The thermoelectric performance is significantly enhanced by tellurium–sulfur co-doping in Co4Sb11.3Te0.7−x S x compounds, and a peak dimensionless figure of merit ~1.1 is achieved in Co4Sb11.3Te0.63S0.07. The enhancement is mainly attributed to the great reduction of the lattice thermal conductivity due to the increased phonon scattering by the sulfur defect.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Development Program of China (No. 2012AA051104), National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB632505), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51272198 and 51302205), Program of International Science and Technology Cooperation (No. S2014ZR0064), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2013M531752). The authors would like to acknowledge Meijun Yang and Xiaolei Nie (from the Cencer for Materials Research and Analysis of Wuhan University of Technology) for the assistance on the EPMA measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Bo Duan, Pengcheng Zhai, Peng Li & Qingjie Zhang

  2. Department of Engineering Structure and Mechanics, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Bo Duan, Chenglong Xu & Shijie Ding

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  1. Bo Duan
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  2. Pengcheng Zhai
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  5. Peng Li
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Correspondence to Pengcheng Zhai.

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Duan, B., Zhai, P., Xu, C. et al. Thermoelectric performance of tellurium and sulfur double-substituted skutterudite materials. J Mater Sci 49, 4445–4452 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-014-8141-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-014-8141-3

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