Engineering of silicides and tetrahedrites for medium-high temperature applications

This communication reports a summary of recent research on thermoelectrics carried out at the Institute for Energetics and Interphases of the National Research Council of Italy. The main topics concern: - Synthesis and characterization of Mg and Mn silicides. - Synthesis and characterization of Ni and Zn substituted tetrahedrites. - Metal contact resistivity measurements and mechanical characterization (scratch tests) on metal-polycrystalline Mg2Si and metal-HMS pellets (metal = Au, Cu, Ni and Al, Ti as inter-layers). - Multiphysics modeling of silicide-based thermoelectric generators with simulations carried out in two steps: (i) evaluation of output power and conversion efficiency of uni-leg and multi-legs TEG; (ii) calculation of thermal tensile stresses in the thermoelectric elements. References: [1] S. Fiameni, S. Battiston, S. Boldrini, A. Famengo, F. Agresti, S. Barison and M. Fabrizio "Synthesis and Characterization of Bi doped Mg2Si Thermoelectric Materials" J. Solid State Chem. 193 (2012) 142-146. [2] S. Battiston, S. Boldrini, S. Fiameni, A. Famengo, M. Fabrizio and S. Barison. "Multilayered thin films for oxidation protection of Mg2Si thermoelectric material at middle-high temperatures" Thin Solid Films (2012), 526, 150-154. [3] M. Saleemi, M. S. Toprak, S. Fiameni, S. Boldrini, S. Battiston, A. Famengo, M. Stingaciu, M. Johnsson and M. Muhammed "Spark Plasma Sintering and Thermoelectric Evaluation of Nanocrystalline Magne-sium Silicide (Mg2Si)" J. Mater. Sci. 48 (2013), 1940-1946. [4] S. Fiameni, A. Famengo, F. Agresti, S. Boldrini, S. Battiston, M. Saleemi, M. Johnsson, M. S. Toprak and M. Fabrizio "Effect of Synthesis and Sintering Conditions on the Thermoelectric Properties of n-Doped Mg2Si" JEM 2301-2306 (2014) 43. [5] M. Saleemi, A. Famengo, S. Fiameni, S. Boldrini, S. Battiston, M. Johnsson, M. Muhammed and M. S. Toprak, Thermoelectric performance of higher manganese silicide nanocomposites" J. Alloy Compd. (2015) 619 31-37.