Skutterudites are promising thermoelectric materials because of their high figure of merit, ZT , and good thermomechanical properties. This work reports the effective figure of merit, ZT eff , and the efficiency of skutterudite legs and a unicouple working under a large temperature difference. The p‐ and n‐type legs are fabricated with electrodes sintered directly to the skutterudite during a hot pressing process. CoSi 2 is used as the electrode for the n‐type skutterudite (Yb 0.35 Co 4 Sb 12 ) and Co 2 Si for the p‐type skutterudite (NdFe 3.5 Co 0.5 Sb 12 ). A technique is developed to measure the ZT eff of individual legs and the efficiency of a unicouple. An ZT eff of 0.74 is determined for the n‐type legs operating between 52 and 595 °C, and an ZT eff of 0.51 for the p‐type legs operating between 77 and 600 °C. The efficiency of the p–n unicouple is determined to be 9.1% operating between ∼70 and 550 °C.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Muto et al. (2012) studied this question.