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Thermoeletric Heusler Compounds

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Heusler Alloys

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Materials Science ((SSMATERIALS,volume 222))

Abstract

Thermoelectric converters for power generation aim at reducing CO\(_2\) emission via the conversion of a part of the low-grade waste heat generated by engines, industrial furnaces, gas pipes, etc. to electricity. The recovery of waste heat from the exhaust of an automotive engine, in particular, is an attractive, albeit not very efficient way for reduction of fuel consumption. Thermoelectric converters with high overall efficiency convert heat directly into electricity without moving parts and, thus, not only decrease our reliance on fossil fuels but also actively counteract global warming. State-of-the-art converters are simply too inefficient to be economic, partly due to expensive elementary constituents (Te, Ge, etc.). On this background, Heusler compounds with C1\(_b\) structure stand out on account of their relatively low cost components and have been extensively studied as potential thermoelectric materials for high temperature power generation up to 1000 K during the last years.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the thermoHEUSLER Project (Project No. 0327876D) of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) and the TEG 2020 project of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Additonal financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (projects BA4171/2-2 and FE633/8-1 of the DFG Priority Programm SPP 1386 and project INST247/897-1 FUGG) and Stiftung Innovation Rheinland-Pfalz (No. 961-386261/931) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank G.H. Fecher, M. Schwall, E. Rausch, S. Ouardi, T. Graf, J. Barth, S. Beccard, M. Cambaz, J. Schmitt, R. Stinshoff, W. Schnelle, S. Kostmann, M. Eckert, M.P. Schmidt, J.M. Stahlhofen and all the student assistants during the last 5 years for their help with theory and experiments, and for fruitful discussions. Especially, the authors thank C. Felser for all the support during the last ten years. BB thanks the whole team of the thermoHEUSLER project for fruitful discussions and especially the team of the Fraunhofer IPM (Freiburg, Germany) for help with experiments and the verification of experimental results. J. Krez and M. Schwall were recipient of a fellowship of the Graduate School of Excellence “MAterials Science IN MainZ” MAINZ through the Excellence Initiative (DFG/GSC 266).

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  1. Institut für Anorganische und Analytische Chemie, Johannes Gutenberg - Universität, 55099, Mainz, Germany

    Julia Krez & Benjamin Balke

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  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Physik fester Stoffe, Dresden, Germany

    Claudia Felser

  2. Department of Electronics, University of York, York, United Kingdom

    Atsufumi Hirohata

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Krez, J., Balke, B. (2016). Thermoeletric Heusler Compounds. In: Felser, C., Hirohata, A. (eds) Heusler Alloys. Springer Series in Materials Science, vol 222. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21449-8_10

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