[12p-D221-1~9] 9.4 Thermoelectric conversion

▼ [12p-D221-6] Synthesis, characterization and densification of n- and p-types skutterudites belonging to the Sm_y (Fe_1-x Ni_x)₄ Sb₁₂ system to be used as substrates for wettability studies.

〇(D)Giovanna Latronico¹, Paolo Mele¹, Shrikant Saini², Fabrizio Valenza³, Riccardo Carlini⁴, Seongho Choi⁵, Tsunehiro Takeuchi⁵, Angelica Baldini⁶, Umberto Anselmi-Tamburini⁶, Cristina Artini⁴ (1.Shibaura Inst. of Tech., 2.Kyushu Inst. of Tech., 3.CNR-ICMATE Genova, 4.Univ. of Genova, 5.Toyota Tech. Inst., 6.Univ. of Pavia)

Keywords:skutterudites, power factor, wettability

The thermoelectric response of the filled skutterudite Sm_y(Fe_xNi_1-x)₄Sb₁₂ to changes in the processing parameters was considered by determining its Seebeck coefficient and electric conductivity in the 300 - 500 K temperature range. Samples having both p- and n- character, were prepared by the conventional melting-sintering technique; subsequently, they underwent a ball milling process in order to be successively densified by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at different pressures, in order to investigate the effect of the pressure variation on power factor. A non-trivial behavior of power factor vs. applied pressure was detected.
Moreover, the chemical reactivity of Sm_y(Fe_xNi_1-x)₄Sb₁₂ using Sn- and In-based alloys in wetting tests performed at 773 K for 20 min by the sessile drop method was investigated. Squared samples were obtained from aforementioned densified samples, and wettability tests were carried out. From SEM analyses, a fairly intricate situation was found.