Preparation and thermoelectric performance of nano rare-earth oxides dispersed p-type BiSbTe alloys by mechanical milling and spark plasma sintering

Simultaneously, the enhancement of power factor and reduction in thermal conductivity is a critical issue to improve the thermoelectric performance of a certain material. In the present work, the rare earth oxide, Pr6O11 was added to the Bi-Sb-Te material and the corresponding thermoelectric properties have been systematically investigated. The Seebeck coefficient was slightly improved due to the increase in effective mass by addition of rare earth oxides in BiSbTe matrix. The electrical conductivity was decreased with increasing rare earth oxide content due to the decreasing mobility owing to the carrier scattering at grain boundaries. The thermal conductivity was reduced of 8% for Pr6O11/BiSbTe composites in which the 4 wt% added Pr6O11 particles, act as a scattering center for middle to higher wavelength phonons and induce the phonon scattering. As a result, the maximum thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT of 0.71 was obtained for 2 wt% added BiSbTe/Pr6O11 composites at 350 K.