Google Search

A2: Medium temperature materials

Effects of sintering temperature on thermoelectric properties of PbTe/Ag composites fabricated by chemical plating and spark plasma sintering

F. R. Sie1,2, Y. H. Tang1, C. S. Hwang1, C. H. Kuo2, H. Y. Ho2, R. C. Juang2, Y. L. Lin2, and C. H. Lan2
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan2Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan

The combined processes can easily fabricate PbTe/Ag composites with heterogeneous structure. The PbTe/Ag composites powders were synthesized by chemical plating method and then densified by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at 300℃~400℃ and 50MPa. This work explores the influences of different SPS temperatures on thermoelectric properties of PbTe/Ag composites. All specimens of PbTe and PbTe/Ag were measured at temperature in the range from 300K to 700K. The results reveal that the SPS temperatures affect not only the change in lattice constants but also the conductions behavior of PbTe/Ag composites. The variation in carrier concentrations will be determined by the role of Ag dopants under different SPS temperatures. When sintering temperature increased from 300℃ to 400℃, the value of power factor was enhanced from 0.38 mW/m-K2 to 1.31 mW/m-K2 at 700K.