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Nano Research 2020, 13(5): 1339-1346 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2590-6
Research Article | Issue | Published: 18 December 2019

Origin of inhomogeneity in spark plasma sintered bismuth antimony telluride thermoelectric nanocomposites

Show Author's Information Enzheng Shi1,2,§,  Shuang Cui3,4,§,  Nicholas Kempf5,  Qingfeng Xing2,  Thomas Chasapis6,  Huazhang Zhu1,  Zhe Li1,  Je-Hyeong Bahk7,  Jeffrey G. Snyder6,  Yanliang Zhang5,  Renkun Chen3,  Yue Wu1,2( )
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
Ames Laboratory, Department of Energy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
Buildings and Thermal Sciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA

§Enzheng Shi and Shuang Cui contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
thermoelectrics, solution synthesis, bismuth antimony telluride, inhomogeneity
Topics:
Antimony compoundsEnergy dispersive spectroscopyNanocompositesTellurium compounds
Cite this article:
Shi E, Cui S, Kempf N, et al. Origin of inhomogeneity in spark plasma sintered bismuth antimony telluride thermoelectric nanocomposites. Nano Research, 2020, 13(5): 1339-1346. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2590-6
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Anisotropy and inhomogeneity are ubiquitous in spark plasma sintered thermoelectric devices. However, the origin of inhomogeneity in thermoelectric nanocomposites has rarely been investigated so far. Herein, we systematically study the impact of inhomogeneity in spark plasma sintered bismuth antimony telluride (BiSbTe) thermoelectric nanocomposites fabricated from solution-synthesized nanoplates. The figure of merit can reach 1.18, which, however, can be overestimated to 1.88 without considering the inhomogeneity. Our study reveals that the inhomogeneity in thermoelectric properties is attributed to the non-uniformity of porosity, textures and elemental distribution from electron backscatter diffraction and energy-dispersive spectroscopy characterizations. This finding suggests that the optimization of bulk material homogeneity should also be actively pursued in any future thermoelectric material research.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Origin of inhomogeneity in spark plasma sintered bismuth antimony telluride thermoelectric nanocomposites

Show Author's information Enzheng Shi1,2,§, Shuang Cui3,4,§, Nicholas Kempf5, Qingfeng Xing2, Thomas Chasapis6, Huazhang Zhu1, Zhe Li1, Je-Hyeong Bahk7, Jeffrey G. Snyder6, Yanliang Zhang5, Renkun Chen3, Yue Wu1,2( )
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
Ames Laboratory, Department of Energy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
Buildings and Thermal Sciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA

§Enzheng Shi and Shuang Cui contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Anisotropy and inhomogeneity are ubiquitous in spark plasma sintered thermoelectric devices. However, the origin of inhomogeneity in thermoelectric nanocomposites has rarely been investigated so far. Herein, we systematically study the impact of inhomogeneity in spark plasma sintered bismuth antimony telluride (BiSbTe) thermoelectric nanocomposites fabricated from solution-synthesized nanoplates. The figure of merit can reach 1.18, which, however, can be overestimated to 1.88 without considering the inhomogeneity. Our study reveals that the inhomogeneity in thermoelectric properties is attributed to the non-uniformity of porosity, textures and elemental distribution from electron backscatter diffraction and energy-dispersive spectroscopy characterizations. This finding suggests that the optimization of bulk material homogeneity should also be actively pursued in any future thermoelectric material research.

Keywords: thermoelectrics, solution synthesis, bismuth antimony telluride, inhomogeneity

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 21 August 2019
Revised: 19 November 2019
Accepted: 01 December 2019
Published: 18 December 2019
Issue date: May 2020

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

Acknowledgements

R. K. C. acknowledges grant # NSF(DMR-1508420). Y. W. thanks the support from the Herbert L. Stiles Professorship and ACRI Center Initiative from Iowa State University.

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