Multi-beam spark plasma sintering and excellent performance of Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3/epoxy thermoelectric films with insulating substrates

Fabricating high-performance large-size thermoelectric (TE) films with insulating substrates remains a major bottleneck for high-efficiency TE cooling in-plane heat dissipation. Herein, we have developed a multi-beam spark plasma sintering (MB-SPS) technology and used it to successfully prepare a se...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energy & environmental science 2023-11, Vol.16 (11), p.5434-5443
Main Authors: Shaoqiu Ke, Liang, Dong, Nie, Xiaolei, Ai, Xiaoling, Li, Longzhou, Liu, Chengshan, Xu, Wenjie, Cui, Wenjun, Ye, Xianfeng, Chen, Tiantian, Li, Xiangyu, Fu, Kai, Zhu, Wanting, Wei, Ping, Zhao, Wenyu, Zhang, Qingjie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cooling
Figure of merit
Insulation
Maximum power
Plasma sintering
Power factor
Spark plasma sintering
Substrates
Thermoelectricity
Transport properties
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Summary:Fabricating high-performance large-size thermoelectric (TE) films with insulating substrates remains a major bottleneck for high-efficiency TE cooling in-plane heat dissipation. Herein, we have developed a multi-beam spark plasma sintering (MB-SPS) technology and used it to successfully prepare a series of high-performance large-size Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3/epoxy (BST/EP) TE films with insulating substrates (MB-BST/EP films). We found that the {000l} preferential orientation factor of BST in the MB-BST/EP films is about 69%, increased by 72.5% as compared with that of conventional SPS BST/EP films (C-BST/EP films), thus achieving remarkable enhancement in their electrical transport properties. The maximum power factor of the MB-BST/EP films is about 2.47 mW m−1 K−2 at 300 K. The maximum dimensionless figure of merit (zT) of the MB-BST/EP film without a substrate and MB-BST/EP film with an insulating substrate are about 0.91@350 K and 1.38@340 K, respectively. The maximum cooling temperature difference of the single-leg device fabricated with the MB-BST/EP film is about 1.7 K, an increase of 2.4 times as compared with that of the device fabricated with the C-BST/EP film. In particular, the microstructures and electrical transport properties of the MB-BST/EP films are almost the same over a large-size area of 25 mm in diameter. Our work demonstrates that the MB-SPS provides an effective approach to prepare high-performance large-size TE cooling films with an insulating substrate.
ISSN:1754-5692
1754-5706
DOI:10.1039/d3ee02604c