Development of spark plasma sintering (SPS) for preparation of nanocrystalline p-type Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3thermoelectric material

Abstract

Bismuth antimony telluride is the most commonly used commercial thermoelectric material for power generation and refrigeration over the temperature range of 200 - 400 K. Improving the performance of these materials is complected balance of optimizing thermoelectric properties. Decreasing the grain size of Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3significantly reduces the thermal conductivity due to the scattering phonons on the grain boundaries. In this work, it is shown the advances of spark plasma sintering (SPS) for preparation of nanocrystalline p-type thermoelctrics based on Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3at different temperatures (240, 350, 400°C). The complex study of structural and thermoelectric properties of Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3were presented. The high dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit ZT ∼ 1 or some more over 300 - 400 K temperature range for nanocrystalline p-type Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3was obtained.