Half‐Heusler Thermoelectric Module with High Conversion Efficiency and High Power Density

By Junjie Yu, Yunfei Xing, Chaoliang Hu, Zhijie Huang, Q. Qiu, Chao Wang, K. Xia, Zhenyi Wang, Sai Bai, Xinbing Zhao and 2 more. Advanced Energy Materials, 2020

140 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Half‐Heusler (HH) compounds have shown great potential in waste heat recovery. Among them, p‐type NbFeSb and n‐type ZrNiSn based alloys have exhibited the best thermoelectric (TE) performance. However, TE devices based on NbFeSb‐based HH compounds are rarely studied. In this work, bulk volumes of p‐type (Nb0.8Ta0.2)0.8Ti0.2FeSb and n‐type Hf0.5Zr0.5NiSn0.98Sb0.02 compounds are successfully prepared with good phase purity, compositional homogeneity, and matchable TE performance. The peak zTs are higher than 1.0 at 973 K for Hf0.5Zr0.5NiSn0.98Sb0.02 and at 1200 K for (Nb0.8Ta0.2)0.8Ti0.2FeSb. Based on an optimal design by a full‐parameters 3D finite element model, a single stage TE module with 8 n‐p HH couples is assembled. A high conversion efficiency of 8.3% and high power density of 2.11 W cm−2 are obtained when hot and cold side temperatures are 997 and 342 K, respectively. Compared to the previous TE module assembled by the same materials, the conversion efficiency is enhanced by 33%, while the power density is almost the same. Given the excellent mechanical robustness and thermal stability, matchable thermal expansion coefficient and TE properties of NbFeSb and ZrNiSn based HH alloys, this work demonstrates their great promise for power generation with both high conversion efficiency and high power density.

Subfields: Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/908d04c0966b595ebf39f0f79330d30a377ef60f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

1. Ting Zhu
2. C. Fu
3. Claudia Felser
4. Stuart S. P. Parkin

In Materials Chemistry

1. C. Fu
2. Ting Zhu
3. Claudia Felser
4. Lidong Chen
5. Ju Li
6. Stuart S. P. Parkin
7. Xinbing Zhao
8. Jin Zou

Citations in the corpus

• Strong phonon softening and avoided crossing in aliovalence-doped heavy-band thermoelectrics (2023, background): “HH compounds with 18 valence electrons have attracted extensive attention in recent years as promising TE materials for power generation 8,9 , exhibiting high zT above unity in both n-type 10,11 and p-type 12,13 materials.”