Scalable synthesis of n-type Mg3Sb2-xBix for thermoelectric applications
Graphical abstract
Section snippets
Credit author statement
Congcong Xu: Investigation–performing the experiments and data collection, Formal analysis, Writing–original draft. Zhongxin Liang: Investigation–performing the experiments and data collection, Formal analysis, Writing–original draft. Hongjing Shang: Formal analysis. Dezhi Wang: Investigation–performing the experiments and data collection. Hui Wang: Investigation–performing the experiments and data collection. Fazhu Ding: Data curation, Writing–review & editing. Jun Mao: Conceptualization,
Synthesis
Magnesium turnings (Mg, 99.98%; Alfa Aesar), bismuth pieces (Bi, 99.99%; Alfa Aesar), antimony shots (Sb, 99.8%; Alfa Aesar), and tellurium pieces (Te, 99.999%; Alfa Aesar) were weighed according to the composition of Mg3.1Sb1.5Bi0.49Te0.01 and with a total mass of 1200 g. Although the stoichiometric ratio of elemental Mg in the compound is generally 3.2, it was reduced to 3.1 in order to alleviate the cold-welding issue during the ball-milling process [8,33,40,41]. The Simoloyer ball-miller
Microstructure and composition of the prepared bulk samples
Experimentally, about 1.12 kg of Mg3.1Sb1.5Bi0.49Te0.01 fine powder was successfully obtained in a single batch of 1.2 kg starting raw materials (∼93% yield), as shown in Fig. S1 (Supporting Information). In principle, the Simoloyer ball-miller can process up to 3 kg of raw elements in total, so scaling up the synthesis even further is possible. The as-prepared powder was then hot-pressed into bulk samples with different diameters, i.e., 1/2 inch (∼12.70 mm), 3/4 inch (∼19.05 mm), 1 inch
Conclusion
In summary, we have demonstrated that over 1 kg Mg3.1Sb1.5Bi0.49Te0.01 powder can be prepared in a single batch using a Simoloyer ball-miller. Bulk Mg3.1Sb1.5Bi0.49Te0.01 samples with different diameters were successfully prepared using the hot-pressing method under proper conditions, and all of the samples show comparable thermoelectric performance. Scanning voltage probing and thermoelectric characterization also demonstrate that the as-prepared 2-inch-diameter sample is highly uniform. The
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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2023, Nano EnergyCitation Excerpt :These compounds’ relatively inexpensive constituent elements, robust mechanical properties, and simple scalable synthesis make n-type Mg3+x(Sb, Bi)2 a highly promising class of candidates for commercial applications. As a result, the development of thermoelectric devices based on these materials is rapidly evolving [10,20–30]. Despite past advances, many scientific and engineering obstacles are encountered during thermoelectric device development using n-type Mg3+x(Sb, Bi)2-based materials, particularly regarding their thermal instability, which is a critical but often ignored problem.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.