1999 Volume 63 Issue 11 Pages 1468-1474
A novel sintering process has been developed for porous thermoelectric devices such as gas-combustion-type and heat-exchange-type devices. Mixture of PbTe and KCl particles with a certain particle diameter and volume fraction of KCl was sintered at 973 K, 7.2 ks, 35 MPa. The KCl particles were removed by water and porous PbTe was obtained. Porosity ratio, specific surface area and permeability of gas were controlled by changing volume fraction of KCl and diameter of PbTe particles. Addition of KCl during sintering did not affect the Seebeck coefficient of PbTe. Therefore, this process can be applied to production of porous PbTe thermoelectric devices.
