ABSTRACT
State-of-the-art Antimony (Sb)-based skutterudites are excellent thermoelectric (TE) materials for various reasons: the starting material is cheap and abundant, they can be used in a wide temperature range, they are of high TE quality, and they show reasonably good mechanical performance. For TE module applications, not only excellent TE properties are necessary but also certain mechanical standards must be fulfilled; therefore, it is important to provide data on mechanical properties and thermal expansion. Thermal stability tests were performed at the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Thermoelectrics on TE materials, hot pressed from the powders produced by Treibacher Industrie AG. Although attractive TE efficiencies were obtained for antimony-based p- and n-type skutterudites, important aspects concerning the thermal stability of these materials at high temperatures have to be considered in order to use these materials for power generation.
