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Developing inexpensive and rapid fabrication methods for high efficiency thermoelectric alloys is a crucial challenge for the thermoelectric industry, especially for energy conversion applications. Here, we fabricated large amounts of p-type Cu0.07Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 alloys, using water atomization to control its microstructure and improve thermoelectric performance by optimizing its initial powder size. All the water atomized powders were sieved with different aperture sizes, of 32–75 μm, 75–125 μm, 125–200 μm, and <200 μm, and subsequently consolidated using hot pressing at 490 °C. The grain sizes were found to increase with increasing powder particle size, which also increased carrier mobility due to improved carrier transport. The maximum electrical conductivity of 1457.33 Ω−1 cm−1 was obtained for the 125–200 μm samples due to their large grain sizes and subsequent high mobility. The Seebeck coefficient slightly increased with decreasing particle size due to scattering of carriers at fine grain boundaries. The higher power factor values of 4.20, 4.22 × 10−3 W/mk2 were, respectively, obtained for large powder specimens, such as 125–200 μm and 75–125 μm, due to their higher electrical conductivity. In addition, thermal conductivity increased with increasing particle size due to the improvement in carriers and phonons transport. The 75–125 μm powder specimen exhibited a relatively high thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT of 1.257 due to this higher electric conductivity.

In this study, the isothermal and cyclic corrosion behaviours of Haynes 282 and Haynes 214 in a lithium molten salt were investigated at 650°C for 168 h and 7 thermal cycles, respectively; this was achieved by measuring the mass changes, surface and cross-sectional morphologies with their elemental distributions, and compositional changes in the subscale, substrate and spalled oxide scale. The weight loss of Haynes 282 comprising an external corrosion layer was approximately four times lower than that of Haynes 214 with a spalled external corrosion layer, depending on the effects of their alloying elements and the preservation, spallation and dissolution of the corrosion layer. After 168 h and 7 thermal cycles, corrosion products of Haynes 282 were Cr 2 O 3 and CoCr 2 O 4 and those of Haynes 214 were Cr 2 O 3 , LiFeO 2 and FeCr 2 O 4 . In addition, the internal corrosion layers of Haynes 282 and Haynes 214 exhibited localised and uniform corrosion behaviours, respectively.

Commercial production of titanium involves chlorination using chlorine gas that can be converted to hydrochloric acid by atmospheric moisture and is hazardous to human health. In the titanium production process, self-propagating high-temperature synthesis is one of the process to directly reduce titanium dioxide. In this work, titanium powder was prepared by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis using titanium dioxide as the starting material and magnesium powder as a reducing agent. After the reaction, magnesium and magnesium oxide by-products were then removed by acid leaching under different leaching conditions, leaving behind pure Ti. During each leaching condition, the temperature of the leaching solution was carefully monitored. After leaching, the recovered titanium in the form of a powder was collected, washed with water and dried in a vacuum oven. Detailed compositional, structural, and morphological analyses were performed to determine the presence of residual reaction by-products. It was found that leaching in 0.4 M hydrochloric acid followed by second leaching in 7.5 M hydrochloric acid is the optimum leaching condition. Furthermore, it was also noticed that total volume of solution in 0.4 M hydrochloric acid leaching condition is advantageous to maintain uniform temperature during the process.