Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha

Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.

Admatechs Company Limited

Junya Murai

Takuji Kita

Toshimasa Hara

Debasish Banerjee

Minjuan Zhang

Tomonari Kogure

Tomoharu Kataoka

Yoshinori Okawauchi

Youichiro Kawai

The present disclosure provides a decorative coating film, which ensures and/or maintains millimeter wave transmission properties even though the decorative coating film is continuously used. The present disclosure relates to a decorative coating film formed on the surface of a resin substrate positioned in the pathway of a radar device, wherein the decorative coating film at least comprises: fine silver particles or fine silver alloy particles, nickel oxide, and a binding resin having light transmission properties, which binds the fine silver particles or the fine silver alloy particles dispersed in the decorative coating film with one another, wherein the shape of the nickel oxide is a wire shape.

Decorative coating film

A process for manufacturing a nanocomposite thermoelectric material having a plurality of nanoparticle inclusions. The process includes determining a material composition to be investigated for the nanocomposite thermoelectric material, the material composition including a conductive bulk material and a nanoparticle material. In addition, a range of surface roughness values for the insulating nanoparticle material that can be obtained using current state of the art manufacturing techniques is determined. Thereafter, a plurality of Seebeck coefficients, electrical resistivity values, thermal conductivity values and figure of merit values as a function of the range of nanoparticle material surface roughness values is calculated. Based on these calculated values, a nanocomposite thermoelectric material composition or ranges of compositions is/are selected and manufactured.

Method of producing thermoelectric material

Provided is a compound which is mixed with a thermoelectric conversion material matrix as a phonon scattering material. The compound is represented by the following formula: (In the above formula, Grepresents a functional group capable of binding to the thermoelectric conversion material matrix; Gindependently represents Gor CH; 0&#x2266;m&#x2266;5; 0&#x2266;m'&#x2266;5; 6&#x2266;n&#x2266;1000; and 1/1000&#x3c;(the number of G/n)&#x2266;1).

Phonon scattering material, nanocomposite thermoelectric material, and method of producing the same

A method of producing a nanocomposite thermoelectric conversion material includes preparing a solution that contains salts of a plurality of first elements constituting a thermoelectric conversion material, and a salt of a second element that has a redox potential lower than redox potentials of the first elements; precipitating the first elements, thereby producing a matrix-precursor that is a precursor of a matrix made of the thermoelectric conversion material, by adding a reducing agent to the solution; precipitating the second element in the matrix-precursor, thereby producing slurry containing the first elements and the second element, by further adding the reducing agent to the solution; and alloying the plurality of the first elements, thereby producing the matrix () made of the thermoelectric conversion material, and producing nano-sized phonon-scattering particles () including the second element, which are dispersed in the matrix (), by filtering and washing the slurry, and then, heat-treating the slurry.

Nanocomposite thermoelectric conversion material and method of producing the same

The invention provides a nanocomposite thermoelectric conversion material () in which the matrix has a polycrystalline structure, and crystal grains () and a crystal grain boundary phase () of a different composition are present therein, and in which the same type of phonon-scattering particles () are dispersed within the crystal grains () and the crystal grain boundary phase ().

Nanocomposite thermoelectric conversion material and process for producing same

A nanocomposite thermoelectric conversion material () includes a crystalline matrix () made of a thermoelectric conversion material; and phonon-scattering particles () dispersed in the crystalline matrix (). Each phonon-scattering particle () includes at least one amorphous nanoparticle () coated with a crystalline film () having a nano-order thickness, and the crystalline structure of the crystalline film () is different from the crystalline structure of the thermoelectric conversion material. The nanocomposite thermoelectric conversion material () is produced by i) precipitating a matrix-precursor oversaturated with one element of the thermoelectric conversion material, around the amorphous nanoparticles, thereby producing nanocomposite particles, and heat-treating the nanocomposite particles, or ii) by precipitating only one element of the thermoelectric conversion material around the amorphous nanoparticles, thereby producing first nanocomposite particles, and then, precipitating the matrix-precursor made of the thermoelectric conversion material, around the first nanocomposite particles, thereby producing second nano composite particles, and heat-treating the second nanocomposite particles.

A nanocomposite thermoelectric conversion material includes a matrix of the thermoelectric conversion material; and a dispersed material that is dispersed in the matrix of the thermoelectric conversion material, and that is in a form of nanoparticles. Roughness of an interface between the matrix of the thermoelectric conversion material and the nanoparticles of the dispersed material is equal to or larger than 0.1 nm.

Nanocomposite thermoelectric conversion material, thermoelectric conversion element including the same, and method of producing nanocomposite thermoelectric conversion material

A thermoelectric converter is made of a first thermoelectric conversion material in which at least one type of second thermoelectric conversion material particles having an average size of 1 to 100 nm is dispersed. At least a part of the second thermoelectric conversion material particles is dispersed at a distance not more than the mean free path of the phonons of the first thermoelectric conversion material.

Thermoelectric converter and method thereof

A thermoelectric converter made of a thermoelectric conversion material is provided in which metal or alloy particles having an average particle size of 1 to 100 nm are dispersed, wherein at least a part of the metal or alloy particles are dispersed at a distance not more than the mean free path of the phonon of the thermoelectric conversion material.

Thermoelectric converter and method of manufacturing same

A method of producing a thermoelectric conversion element includes preparing a dispersion liquid by mixing slurry containing ceramic particles with salts of at least two elements that constitute a thermoelectric conversion material, and then, precipitating the at least two elements that constitute the thermoelectric conversion material on the ceramic particles in the dispersion liquid; performing washing; performing heating treatment; and performing sintering. Contact between a solution with a pH lower than 1 among solutions of the salts and the slurry containing the ceramic particles is avoided, or the solution with the pH lower than 1 contacts the slurry containing the ceramic particles for a first time when the at least two elements that constitute the thermoelectric conversion material are precipitated.

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Susono, Japan

Junya Murai