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A2: Medium temperature materials

Large pellet fabrication of filled skutterudite materials and their thermoelectric properties

T. Tomida, A. Sumiyoshi, G. Nie, T. Ochi, S. Suzuki, M. Kikuchi and J. Q. Guo
Furukawa Co., Ltd.

Filled skutterudite is one of the promising materials for thermoelectric power generation because its ZT value is relatively high. How to mass produce the skutterudite materials is a problem to be solved. Here, we report that large size pellets of p-type (La, Ba, Ga, Ti)x(Fe, Co)4Sb12 and n-type (Yb, Ca, Al, Ga, In)y(Co, Fe)4Sb12 skutterudites with diameters of 100mm to 200mm were successfully fabricated by spark plasma sintering method and their thermoelectric properties reached p-ZT=0.7 and n-ZT=0.9. Compared with p-ZT=0.75 and n-ZT=1.0 of their small pellets with the diameter of 30mm, the ZT values of the large pellets are still low. Therefore, the fabrication process needs to be further improved.