- Technical Name
- Thermoelectric alloy
- Operator
- National Changhua University of Education
- Booth
- Online display only
- Contact
- 劉嘉吉
- liucj@cc.ncue.edu.tw
| Technical Description | This invention provides thermoelectric materials of Sb-doped bismuth telluride, Bi2-xSbxTe3-δ, where x is 1.51 – 1.59 and δ is 0 – 0.7. The dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit (zT) of the bismuth telluride fabricated using hydrothermal methods followed by evacuated-and-encapsulated sintering technique can reach a value higher than 1.2. This material can be used as the p-leg of a thermoelectric module. This significant enhancement increases the efficiency of thermoelectric coolers (TEC) or generators (TEG). | ||
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| Scientific Breakthrough | The commercial bismuth antimonide alloys show the highest dimensionless figure of merit ZT ≈ 1, where T is the absolute temperature, between room temperature and 100 ºC. High ZT values of nanostructured Bi0.45Sb1.55Te3 for thermoelectric cooling or energy harvesting are fabricated by hydrothermal methods followed by evacuated-and encapsulating sintering.A zT = 1.65 at 290 K and 1.75 at 270 K are achieved with 60-70% improvement of that of the commercial state-of-the-art Bi2Te3 materials around room temperature. The significant ZT improvement arises from the much-reduced thermal conductivity. The low thermal conductivity is mainly due to the increased phonon scattering in the nanostructured materials. | ||
| Industrial Applicability | 1. Thermoelectric generators used in producing electricity outdoors (thermoelectric pots for smartphone charging and camp lamps); 2. Solid-state thermoelectric cooling in cooling diodes, medical uses (temperature controller and chillers), and portable refrigerators. |
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