Nano-Engineered Thermoelectric Coating
Abstract
A nano-engineering approach has been developed for the synthesis of the thermoelectric composite materials. A possible way for enhancing ZT is to incorporate thermoelectric materials, e.g., Skutterudite, into the nano-sized pores of three-dimensional periodic arrays. The present study reports the development of a method for making a Nano-Engineered Thermoelectric (NETE) coating on silica particles. The coated particles are assembled into three-dimension array of opals to form METE composite. The process consists of coating silica particles with gold and then with thermoelectric material. Gold coating has the advantage that post-coating assembly provides a continuous network of Skutterudite-filled gaps between gold interconnects. The second coating was carried out by chemical co-precipitation of Co and Sb precursors from a solid solution onto the surfaces of the gold-coated particles under controlled conditions. Through further heat-treatments (calcination, reduction and alloying), a Skutterudite layer has been formed in high purity. Both the gold- and gold/Skutterudite-coated particles retain the morphology of the original silica particles. In this paper, the processing conditions and materials characterizations are reported and discussed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADP011811
Entities
People
- M. Muhammed
- M. Toprak
- Yu Zhang
Organizations
- Royal Institute of Technology