Skutterudite unicouple characterization for energy harvesting applications

• Main Authors: Muto, Andrew Jerome (Contributor), Chen, Gang (Contributor), Yang, Jian (Author), Poudel, Bed (Author), Ren, Zhifeng (Author)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering (Contributor), Muto, Andrew (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley Blackwell, 2012-10-25T17:43:45Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

Skutterudites are promising thermoelectric materials because of their high figure of merit, ZT, and good thermomechanical properties. This work reports the effective figure of merit, ZT[subscript eff], 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[subscript 2] is used as the electrode for the n-type skutterudite (Yb[subscript 0.35]Co[subscript 4]Sb[subscript 12]) and Co[subscript 2]Si for the p-type skutterudite (NdFe3.5Co0.5Sb12). A technique is developed to measure the ZTeff of individual legs and the efficiency of a unicouple. An ZT[subscript eff] of 0.74 is determined for the n-type legs operating between 52 and 595 °C, and an ZT[subscript eff] 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.
Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM
United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Science (Award DE-SC0001299)
United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Award DE-FG02-09ER46577)