Solubility design leading to high figure of merit in low-cost Ce-CoSb3 skutterudites

Tang, Yinglu; Hanus, Riley; Chen, Sinn-wen; Snyder, G. Jeffrey

doi:10.1038/ncomms8584

Title: Solubility design leading to high figure of merit in low-cost Ce-CoSb₃ skutterudites

Journal Article · Mon Jul 20 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8584· OSTI ID:1459188

Tang, Yinglu ^[1]; Hanus, Riley ^[2]; Chen, Sinn-wen ^[3]; Snyder, G. Jeffrey ^[2]

California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States); Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
National Tsing Hua Univ., Hsin-Chu (Taiwan)

CoSb₃-based filled skutterudite has emerged as one of the most viable candidates for thermoelectric applications in automotive industry. However, the scale-up commercialization of such materials is still a challenge due to the scarcity and cost of constituent elements. Here we study Ce, the most earth abundant and low-cost rare earth element as a single-filling element and demonstrate that, by solubility design using a phase diagram approach, the filling fraction limit (FFL) x in Ce_xCo₄Sb₁₂ can be increased more than twice the amount reported previously (x = 0.09). This ultra-high FFL (x = 0.20) enables the optimization of carrier concentration such that no additional filling elements are needed to produce a state of the art n-type skutterudite material with a zT value of 1.3 at 850 K before nano-structuring. In conclusion, the earth abundance and low cost of Ce would potentially facilitate a widespread application of skutterudites.

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Research Organization:: Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0001299

OSTI ID:: 1459188

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 113 works

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