Thermoelectric and structural properties of high-performance In-based skutterudites for high-temperature energy recovery

Abstract

Abstract

Data-Driven Review of Thermoelectric Materials: Performance and Resource Considerations

“…Notwithstanding these difficulties, creative approaches have yielded highly promising materials. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The guiding principle behind the design of thermoelectric materials, and indeed, any functional material, is to completely understand the causal physics and use such knowledge to rationally optimize material properties. However, even without knowledge of causality, progress across numerous fields is enabled by correlation, without a priori understanding of the drivers.…”

Rapid preparation of InxCo4Sb12 with a record-breaking ZT = 1.5: the role of the In overfilling fraction limit and Sb overstoichiometry

“…1,2 Among TEs, skutterudite antimonides have been considered as one of the best materials for applications at intermediate temperatures. [3][4][5] The specic feature of skutterudites is the existence of interstitial voids in the body-centered cubic (bcc) crystal structure (space group Im 3). Filling the voids by guest atoms allows one to greatly reduce the thermal conductivity of skutterudites which in turn signicantly enhances the dimensionless thermoelectric gure of merit ZT dened as ZT ¼ sS 2 T/k, where s is the electrical conductivity, S is the Seebeck coefficient, T is the absolute temperature, and k is the total thermal conductivity.…”

In-doped multifilled n-type skutterudites with ZT= 1.8

“…A series of In-filled skutterudites of various groups prepared with various methods followed and confirmed that indium was useful as a filler. These investigations were extended to double-filled skutterudites of In with Sn [29], with Ba [3,16,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37], with Tl [38], with Pb [35], with Ce [6,[39][40][41][42], with Pr [27], with Nd [21,43], with Yb [7,8,16,19,[44][45][46][47][48][49], with Lu [50], and to triple filled skutterudites of In with Ba and Ce [51], with Ba and Yb [16,52], with La and Yb [47], with Ce and Yb [41,42,53] and Ga and Tl [26]. There are also attempts to improve the TE properties by doping and/or alloying e.g.…”