High performance thermoelectric module through isotype bulk heterojunction engineering of skutterudite materials

Nie, Ge; Li, Wenjie; Guo, Junqing; Yamamoto, Atsushi; Kimura, Kaoru; Zhang, Xiaomi; Isaacs, Eric B.; Dravid, Vinayak; Wolverton, Chris; Kanatzidis, Mercouri G.; Priya, Shashank

doi:10.1016/j.nanoen.2019.104193

High performance thermoelectric module through isotype bulk heterojunction engineering of skutterudite materials

Journal Article · Tue Oct 15 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Nano Energy

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2019.104193· OSTI ID:1777109

Nie, Ge ^[1]; Li, Wenjie ^[2]; Guo, Junqing ^[3]; Yamamoto, Atsushi ^[4]; Kimura, Kaoru ^[5]; Zhang, Xiaomi ^[6]; Isaacs, Eric B. ^[6]; Dravid, Vinayak ^[6]; Wolverton, Chris ^[6]; Kanatzidis, Mercouri G. ^[6]; Priya, Shashank ^[2]

Furukawa Co., Ltd. (Japan); ENN Science & Development Co., Ltd., Hebei (China); Northwestern University
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA (United States)
Furukawa Co., Ltd. (Japan)
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) (Japan)
University of Tokyo (Japan)
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (United States)

We demonstrate filled CoSb₃ skutterudite materials with excellent thermoelectric (TE) performance that results in one of the highest reported single stage module efficiency. Here, the improvement in TE material performance was obtained by creating isotype n/n “bulk heterojunction” structure through assembly of novel skutterudite nanocrystals with different Yb-doping content. Combination of significant increase in carrier transport through heterojunction structure and reduction in long-range acoustic phonon transmission by two-phase mixture resulted in enhanced power factor and reduced lattice thermal conductivity. As a result, the figure-of-merit (zT) of heterojunction TE material is improved by more than 35% compared with pristine single homogeneous material. Using these improved TE materials, a high module conversion efficiency of ~9.15% was obtained when operating between 650 °C and 50 °C. This is one of the highest conversion efficiency among the practically measured single stage modules.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0014520

OSTI ID:: 1777109

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1780005

Journal Information:: Nano Energy, Journal Name: Nano Energy Vol. 66; ISSN 2211-2855

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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42 ENGINEERING
bulk heterojunction
conversion efficiency
nano grain engineering
skutterudite
thermoelectric

High performance thermoelectric module through isotype bulk heterojunction engineering of skutterudite materials

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