Thermoelectric Properties and Stability of Nanocomposites Type I Clathrate Ba-Cu-Si with SiC

Abstract

Thermoelectric (TE) materials attract interest for the capability of converting waste heat into electricity. Nanostructuring is considered as an effective approach to improve the conversion efficiency by reducing the lattice thermal conductivity. Nanostructured materials are metastable due to the high interface energy of grain boundaries, therefore they lose easily the nanostructure features during the thermal cycling at high temperatures, i.e., showing instabilities in TE properties. Here we show the structural/microstructural stability of type I clathrate nanocomposites in the Ba-Cu-Si system with SiC as the secondary phase. SiC has no influence on the crystal structure of the type I clathrate and very limited contributions to the grain size reduction and size-growth prevention during the ball milling and hot pressing processes, but stabilizes the TE properties during thermal cycling. A high bulk density and as low as possible contamination in nanocomposites are essential for high TE performance and high stability in nanostructured materials.