• Electronic Materials Letters
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.689-699
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• 2018

Nanostructured Ni doped $Bi_2S_3$ ($Bi_{2-x}Ni_xS_3$, $0{\leq}x{\leq}0.07$) is explored as a candidate for telluride free thermoelectric material, through a combination process of mechanical alloying with subsequent consolidation by cold pressing followed with a sintering process. The cold pressing method was found to impact the thermoelectric properties in two ways: (1) introduction of the dopant atom in the interstitial sites of the crystal lattice which results in an increase in carrier concentration, and (2) introduction of a porous structure which reduces the thermal conductivity. The electrical resistivity of $Bi_2S_3$ was decreased by adding Ni atoms, which shows a minimum value of $2.35{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}m$ at $300^{\circ}C$ for $Bi_{1.99}Ni_{0.01}S_3$ sample. The presence of porous structures gives a significant effect on reduction of thermal conductivity, by a reduction of ~ 59.6% compared to a high density $Bi_2S_3$. The thermal conductivity of $Bi_{2-x}Ni_xS_3$ ranges from 0.31 to 0.52 W/m K in the temperature range of $27^{\circ}C$ (RT) to $300^{\circ}C$ with the lowest ${\kappa}$ values of $Bi_2S_3$ compared to the previous works. A maximum ZT value of 0.13 at $300^{\circ}C$ was achieved for $Bi_{1.99}Ni_{0.01}S_3$ sample, which is about 2.6 times higher than (0.05) of $Bi_2S_3$ sample. This work show an optimization pathway to improve thermoelectric performance of $Bi_2S_3$ through Ni doping and introduction of porosity.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.91-96
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• 2021

The enhancement of thermoelectric figure of merit was achieved by the simple processes of sieving and high energy ball milling, respectively, which are enable to reduce the grain size of n-type Bi₂Te₃ thermoelectric materials. By optimizing the grain size, the electrical conductivities and thermal conductivities were controlled. In this study, spark plasma sintering was employed for hindering the grain growth during the sintering process. The thermoelectric figure of merit was measured to be 0.78 in the samples with 30 min high energy ball milling process. Notably, this value was 40 % higher than that of pristine Bi₂Te₃ sample. This result shows the properties of thermoelectric materials can be readily controlled by optimization of grain size via simple ball milling process.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.301-307
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• 2010

Actuation using a shape memory alloy (SMA) is considered to be an important technology that will play a leading role in market for next-generation medical devices because an SMA actuator can accurately imitate skillful and delicate hand movements. However, SMA actuators have not been successfully used because of problems in control design caused by the nonlinear hysteresis effect of SMA, which leads to inaccuracies in control systems. In order to overcome the effect, the authors invented a SMA actuator, which could actively and rapidly cool down and heat up, by combining a SMA catheter and a TE module using the Peltier effect. In order to evaluate the TE characteristics of our TE module system, the changes in the temperature with 1) incremental increases in a continuous electric current and 2) the appearance of a discontinuous constant or reverse current are discussed in this paper.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.255-258
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• 2012

In this paper, with a thermoelectric device using the seebeck effect which generates electromotive force by temperature difference generates electric energy an energy harvesting circuit using MPPT(Maximun Power Point Traking) control is designed. After periodically sampling the open voltage of the thermoelectric device, the 1/2 voltage of open voltage which in a maximum power point is maintained through MPPT control circuit and harvested energy from thermoelectric device is delivered to load through a switch. The proposed thermal energy harvesting circuit is designed with $0.35{\mu}m$ CMOS process and the chip area excluding pads is $1168.7{\mu}m{\times}541.3{\mu}m$.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.110-116
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• 2009

Research for climate control seats is being vigorously pursued because requests for passenger's thermal comfort are increasing. Recently, thermoelectric devices have been applied to automotive seats for both cooling and heating operations. The climate control seats using thermoelectric devices can rapidly control the air temperature passing through the devices and directly affect the thermal comfort of passengers. The performance characteristics of the climate control seats were analyzed by experiments for two different types of a leather covered seat and a mesh applied seat. Experimental results show that the cooling and heating performance for the mesh applied seat by using the discharge port of the shape of nozzle was improved significantly in comparison with that for the leather covered seat. The variation of temperature between the inlet air and the outlet air of the climate control seat for the enhanced mesh applied type was by $-3.5^{\circ}C$ at cooling mode, and was by $15.0^{\circ}C$ at heating mode, after about 30 minutes, respectively. Also, it is possible to provide rapid thermal comfort to passengers sitting on the seat in the vehicle cabin by using the proposed climate control seat.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.115-121
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• 2017

In this work, p-type Bi-Sb-Te alloys powders are prepared using gas atomization, a mass production powder preparation method involving rapid solidification. To study the effect of the sintering temperature on the microstructure and thermoelectric properties, gas-atomized powders are consolidated at different temperatures (623, 703, and 743 K) using spark plasma sintering. The crystal structures of the gas-atomized powders and sintered bulks are identified using an X-ray diffraction technique. Texture analysis by electron backscatter diffraction reveals that the grains are randomly oriented in the entire matrix, and no preferred orientation in any unique direction is observed. The hardness values decrease with increasing sintering temperature owing to a decrease in grain size. The conductivity increases gradually with increasing sintering temperature, whereas the Seebeck coefficient decreases owing to increases in the carrier mobility with grain size. The lowest thermal conductivity is obtained for the bulk sintered at a low temperature (603 K), mainly because of its fine-grained microstructure. A peak ZT of 1.06 is achieved for the sample sintered at 703 K owing to its moderate electrical conductivity and sustainable thermal conductivity.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.1106-1112
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• 2003

For the purpose of making clear the role of oxygen in the thermoelectric properties of FeSi$_2$, thermoelectric measurements and spectroscopic characterization were conducted for the oxidized specimens fabricated from ($\alpha$+$\varepsilon$)-phases and/or $\beta$-phase. Addition of oxygen to FeSi$_2$ prevented both densification during sintering and transformation from metallic phases to semiconducting phase during annealing treatment. In an specimens, electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity decreased with oxidation time. The Seebeck coefficient was positive and small for pure FeSi$_2$. And/or the oxidized specimens fabricated from ($\alpha$+$\varepsilon$)-phases. However, it was negative and showed a maximum peak at about 500 K for the oxidized FeSi$_2$ fabricated from $\beta$-phase. The value of maximum peak increased with oxidation time.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.90-97
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• 2021

In this study, a Bi2Te3 thermoelectric generator (TEG) was fabricated to convert unused thermal energy into useful electrical energy. For the performance test, a dedicated experiment device consisting of a heating block operating with cartridge heaters and a cooling block through which a refrigerant flows was constructed. A 3×3 array of thermocouples was mounted on the heating block and the cooling block, respectively, to derive the temperature fields and heat transfer rate onto both sides of the TEG. Experiments were conducted for a total of 9 temperature differences, obtaining V-I and P-R curves. The results of 7 variables including Seebeck coefficients that have a major effect on performance were presented as a function of the temperature difference. The feasibility of the energy recovery performance of the developed TEG was verified from the maximum power output of 7.5W and conversion efficiency of 11.3%.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.61-65
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• 2020

Suppressing lattice thermal conductivity of thermoelectric materials is one of the most popular approach to improve their thermoelectric performance. However, accurate characterization of suppressed lattice thermal conductivity is challenging as it can only be acquired by subtracting other contributions to thermal conductivity from the total thermal conductivity. Here we explain that electronic thermal conductivity (for all materials) and bipolar thermal conductivity (for narrow band gap materials) need to be determined accurately first to characterize the lattice thermal conductivity accurately. Methods to calculate Lorenz number for electronic thermal conductivity (via single parabolic model and using a simple equation) and bipolar thermal conductivity (via two-band model) are introduced. Accurate characterization of the lattice thermal conductivity provides a powerful tool to accurately evaluate effect of different defect engineering strategies.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.716-720
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• 2021

In this study, we examine the availability of a cooling patch to enhance the output power of a hybrid energy device (HED) comprising a photovoltaic cell (PVC) and a thermoelectric generator (TEG). The cooling patch attached on the back of the TEG drops the temperature of the PVC via the TEG and makes a large thermal gradient across the TEG under irradiances in a range of 200 to 1000 W/m². The cooling patch is more effective for the output power of the HED as the irradiance increases, and it enhances the maximum output power of the HED to 42.1 mW at an irradiance of 1000 W/m². The increment in the maximum output power reaches 27% owing to the attachment of the cooling patch that does not consume any power.