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Thermoelectric properties of spark plasma sintered composites based on TiNiSn half-Heusler alloys

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Abstract

Half-Heusler (HH) and especially TiNiSn-based alloys have shown high potential as thermoelectric (TE) materials for power generation applications. The reported transport properties show, however, a significant spread of results, due mainly to the difficulty in fabricating single-phase HH samples in these multicomponent and multiphased systems. In particular, little attention has been paid to the influence of the various minority phases on the TE performance of these compounds. A clear understanding of these issues is mandatory for the design of improved and stable TE HH-based composites. This study examines the structural and compositional influence of the residual metallic (Sn) and intermetallic phases (mainly Ti6Sn5 and the Heusler compound TiNi2Sn) on the TE properties of the TiNiSn HH compounds processed by spark plasma sintering.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to thank Jean-Claude Tedenac, Nini Pryds, Anke Weidenkaff, Matthew Rosseinsky, Martin Köhne, and Jeff Snyder for the fruitful discussions about the potential thermoelectric applications of half-Heuslers, discussions that inspired us to write this article. The work in Mainz was financially supported by the Stiftung Rheinland Pfalz für Innovation (Projekt 863).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel

    Yaniv Gelbstein, Nadav Tal, Aviad Yarmek, Yoav Rosenberg & Moshe P. Dariel

  2. Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany

    Siham Ouardi, Benjamin Balke & Claudia Felser

  3. Robert Bosch GmbH, 70049, Stuttgart, Germany

    Martin Köhne

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  1. Yaniv Gelbstein
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  2. Nadav Tal
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Correspondence to Yaniv Gelbstein.

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Gelbstein, Y., Tal, N., Yarmek, A. et al. Thermoelectric properties of spark plasma sintered composites based on TiNiSn half-Heusler alloys. Journal of Materials Research 26, 1919–1924 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2011.107

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2011.107

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