Tellurium based glasses have interesting thermoelectric characteristics. However, their high electrical resistivity is still an obstacle to considering them for thermoelectric applications. In this work, the (Te 85 Se 15 ) 6020.6x As 4020.4x Cu x glass system was studied. This revealed that Cu can act as glass former and increase both glass thermal stability and electrical conductivity. The best candidate, (Te 85 Se 15 ) 45 As 30 Cu 25 , was chosen to prepare composites with Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3 using spark plasma sintering. These glass ceramic samples exhibited a much better thermoelectric performance. Glass ceramics with 50 mol. % of Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3 show a maximum ZT value equal to 0.37 at 413 K. Meanwhile, the advantages of glass including low sintering temperature and high formability are well maintained.
The mechanical properties of bismuth telluride based thermoelectric materials have received much less attention in the literature than their thermoelectric properties. Polycrystalline p-type Bi 0.5 Sb 1.5 Te 3 materials were produced from powder using Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS). The effects of nano-B 4 C addition on the thermoelectric performance, Vickers hardness and fracture toughness were measured. Addition of 0.2 vol% B 4 C was found to have little effect on zT but increased hardness by approximately 27% when compared to polycrystalline material without B 4 C. The K IC fracture toughness of these compositions was measured as 0.80 MPa m 1/2 by Single-Edge V-Notched Beam (SEVNB). The machinability of polycrystalline materials produced by SPS was significantly better than commercially available directionally solidified materials because the latter is limited by cleavage along the crystallographic plane parallel to the direction of solidification.
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