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Rapid fabrication of pure p-type filled skutterudites with enhanced thermoelectric properties via a reactive liquid-phase sintering

  • Energy materials
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Abstract

Filled skutterudites have great potential for power generation. However, the conventional melting–quenching–annealing–sintering process requires a time-consuming annealing process to accomplish the phase transformation. A new strategy to realize the complete phase transformation in a short time is an urgent need for filled skutterudite. In this study, a modifying reactive liquid-phase sintering enabled by introducing the extra BaSb3 in the spark plasma sintering process was successfully applied to fabricate pure BaFe4Sb12 skutterudites in less than 30 h. It is found that increasing BaSb3 liquid content can effectively promote the phase transformation to BaFe4Sb12 skutterudite through accelerating the chemical reaction between the quenched mixtures during the sintering process. However, an abnormal grain growth would take place with further increasing the liquid content. An optimal ZT value of 0.62 at 800 K was achieved for the BaFe4Sb12 skutterudite due to the enhanced Seebeck coefficient and the increased electrical conductivity as well as the decreased lattice thermal conductivity induced by the single-phase composition. This work demonstrates that pure filled skutterudite with enhanced TE performance can be fabricated by the simple and efficient reactive liquid-phase sintering without longtime annealing process.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Science and Technology Planning Program of Jiangxi Provincial Education Department (GJJ180916).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangxi Province Engineering Research Center of Materials Surface Enhancing and Remanufacturing, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Jiujiang University, Jiujiang, 332005, China

    Jian Yu & Qi Luo

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

    Wanting Zhu & Wenyu Zhao

  3. Anhui Key Laboratory of Metal Materials and Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan, 243002, China

    Zhiyuan Liu

  4. School of Materials Science and Energy Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan, 528000, Guangdong, China

    Hong Chen

  5. College of Material Science and Engineering, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, 410004, Hunan, China

    Hong Chen

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  1. Jian Yu
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  2. Wanting Zhu
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  3. Wenyu Zhao
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  4. Qi Luo
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  5. Zhiyuan Liu
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Correspondence to Jian Yu or Wenyu Zhao.

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Yu, J., Zhu, W., Zhao, W. et al. Rapid fabrication of pure p-type filled skutterudites with enhanced thermoelectric properties via a reactive liquid-phase sintering. J Mater Sci 55, 7432–7440 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-04523-8

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