Improvement of the thermoelectric performance of a nanostructured skutterudite
Abstract
Reducing grain size is effective in lowering thermal conductivity of a polycrystal, because it increases the number of grain boundaries that scatter the phonons carrying heat. However, the grain growth that occurs during sintering undermines this objective. The spark plasma sintering temperature was therefore optimized for a ball-milled skutterudite (Co0.91Ni0.09Sb3) nanopowder. A sintering map, grain size versus relative mass density of the samples sintered at various temperatures ranging between 340 – 630°C, was newly established. This led to the finding of a good trade-off between a low grain size (101 nm) and a high relative density (94%) for the sample sintered at 500°C. Its phonon thermal conductivity was lowered to 2 W m−1 K−1 at 300 K, a value smaller than that of some filled n-type skutterudites. Thus, its peak ZT was improved by + 40% compared to the micrograin material and reached a value of 0.9 at 800 K.
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BibTeX
@article{johari2026improvement,
title = {{Improvement of the thermoelectric performance of a nanostructured skutterudite}},
author = {K.K. Johari and O. Chadli and R. Bhardwaj and J. Bourgon and S. Ammar-Merah and E. Alleno},
journal = {Materials Research Bulletin},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1016/j.materresbull.2026.114521},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05845145v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Improvement of the thermoelectric performance of a nanostructured skutterudite
AU - K.K. Johari
AU - O. Chadli
AU - R. Bhardwaj
AU - J. Bourgon
AU - S. Ammar-Merah
AU - E. Alleno
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/30
JO - Materials Research Bulletin
DO - 10.1016/j.materresbull.2026.114521
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05845145v1
AB - Reducing grain size is effective in lowering thermal conductivity of a polycrystal, because it increases the number of grain boundaries that scatter the phonons carrying heat. However, the grain growth that occurs during sintering undermines this objective. The spark plasma sintering temperature was therefore optimized for a ball-milled skutterudite (Co0.91Ni0.09Sb3) nanopowder. A sintering map, grain size versus relative mass density of the samples sintered at various temperatures ranging between 340 – 630°C, was newly established. This led to the finding of a good trade-off between a low grain size (101 nm) and a high relative density (94%) for the sample sintered at 500°C. Its phonon thermal conductivity was lowered to 2 W m−1 K−1 at 300 K, a value smaller than that of some filled n-type skutterudites. Thus, its peak ZT was improved by + 40% compared to the micrograin material and reached a value of 0.9 at 800 K.
SN - 0025-5408
SN - 1873-4227
ER -