Study on Enhancing the Thermoelectric Properties of Ti2CrSn Alloys

Abstract

Based on the Hg2CuTi structure, the full-Heusler alloy Ti2CrSn, with a ground state band gap of semiconductor, is a thermoelectric material with potential applications. Through preparing Ti2CrSn1−xAlx (x = 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2) series bulk materials via arc melting, the effects of the electrical and thermal transport properties of Ti2CrSn series alloys were investigated, and different Al doping on the phase structure, the microscopic morphology, and the thermoelectric properties of Ti2CrSn were examined. The results show that the materials all exhibit characteristics of p-type semiconductors at the temperature range of 323 to 923 K. Al elemental doping can significantly increase the Seebeck coefficient and reduce the thermal conductivity of the materials. Among them, the sample Ti2CrSn0.8Al0.2 obtained a maximum value of 5.03 × 10−3 for the thermoelectric optimal ZT value at 723 K, which is 3.6 times higher than that of Ti2CrSn.