The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 27, 2001
Filed:
Jun. 30, 1999
Hiroki Kusakabe, Sakai, JP;
Masuo Takigawa, Nara, JP;
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Osaka, JP;
Abstract
The present invention relates to a skutterudite thermoelectric material for directly converting heat generated by the Seebeck effect into electricity, and provides a method of producing a Co—Sb-based filled-skutterudite sintered material having a lower thermal conductivity and thereby having a higher figure of merit. The crystal grains of a Sb-containing skutterudite compound and a metal oxide dispersed in the crystal grain boundaries are sintered to obtain the skutterudite thermoelectric sintered material. The metal oxide prevents growth of grains in the process of sintering, whereby the skutterudite compound is finely pulverized to have an average crystal grain size of 20 &mgr;m or less. As a result, the areas at the boundaries of the fine crystal grains are increased, phonon scattering is enhanced, the thermal conductivity is decreased, and the figure of merit is increased. The metal oxide is an oxide of a rare earth metal. The skutterudite compound includes a filled-skutterudite compound having a composition of Ln,Fe,Co,Sb,(Ln: a rare earth metal, 0<x≦4, 0<y≦1).