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Microstructure and thermoelectric properties of porous Bi2Te2.85Se0.15 bulk materials fabricated by semisolid powder processing

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Abstract

Semisolid powder processing (SPP) was used to fabricate n-type bismuth telluride-based polycrystalline bulk materials with improved thermoelectric properties. The minimum lattice thermal conductivity and the maximum ZT value of the SPP sample obtained in this study are 0.163 W m−1 K−1 at 383 K and 0.89 at 423 K, respectively. This ZT value exhibited a significant enhancement of 65.7 and 101.3% compared with the hot-pressing and the die-casting counterparts, respectively. The reduction of the lattice thermal conductivity is mainly due to the nanoscale grains and the mesoscale pores induced by the SPP. The grain boundaries and the interfaces brought by the porosities could scatter the phonons with mean free paths extensively from 300 nm to 1 μm. The remarkable enhancement of the ZT value and the convenient fabricating process suggest that the SPP is a promising method for mass production of high-performance bismuth telluride-based polycrystalline bulk materials.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51175460 and 51275466), Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51221004), Zhejiang Provincial Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists of China (Grant No. LR14E050002), and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant No. NCET-13-0518).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power Transmission and Control, School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People’s Republic of China

    Deqing Mei, Hui Wang, Yang Li & Zhehe Yao

  2. Key Laboratory of Advanced Manufacturing Technology of Zhejiang Province, School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People’s Republic of China

    Deqing Mei, Hui Wang, Yang Li & Zhehe Yao

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People’s Republic of China

    Tiejun Zhu

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  1. Deqing Mei
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Correspondence to Deqing Mei.

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Mei, D., Wang, H., Li, Y. et al. Microstructure and thermoelectric properties of porous Bi2Te2.85Se0.15 bulk materials fabricated by semisolid powder processing. Journal of Materials Research 30, 2585–2592 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2015.142

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