Synoradzki K, Ciesielski K, Veremchuk I, Borrmann H, Skokowski P, Szymański D, Grin Y, Kaczorowski D. Thermal and Electronic Transport Properties of the Half-Heusler Phase ScNiSb.
MATERIALS 2019;
12:ma12101723. [PMID:
31137868 PMCID:
PMC6566183 DOI:
10.3390/ma12101723]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2019] [Revised: 05/24/2019] [Accepted: 05/24/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Thermoelectric properties of the half-Heusler phase ScNiSb (space group F 4 ¯ 3m) were studied on a polycrystalline single-phase sample obtained by arc-melting and spark-plasma-sintering techniques. Measurements of the thermopower, electrical resistivity, and thermal conductivity were performed in the wide temperature range 2-950 K. The material appeared as a p-type conductor, with a fairly large, positive Seebeck coefficient of about 240 μV K-1 near 450 K. Nevertheless, the measured electrical resistivity values were relatively high (83 μΩm at 350 K), resulting in a rather small magnitude of the power factor (less than 1 × 10-3 W m-1 K-2) in the temperature range examined. Furthermore, the thermal conductivity was high, with a local minimum of about 6 W m-1 K-1 occurring near 600 K. As a result, the dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit showed a maximum of 0.1 at 810 K. This work suggests that ScNiSb could be a promising base compound for obtaining thermoelectric materials for energy conversion at high temperatures.
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