Year
2020
Degree Name
Master of Philosophy
Department
Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials
Abstract
Ever since the industrial revolution and expansion of agriculture started to flourish around 200 years ago, we have been raising the concentration of carbon dioxide gas in the global atmosphere. Levels of greenhouse gases have accelerated because of human activities. The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon that allows our planet to maintain the essential conditions to harbour life, but high concentrations of greenhouse gases raise global temperatures and contribute to environmental problems. In order to ease human life, massive industrialization and vast transportation systems have made immense contributions to our daily lives, along with dumping enormous amounts of ubiquitous heat that will be wasted as a great percentage of unexploited energy, contributing to the rise in global temperature and constantly pushing us to think of alternatives. Several forms of green renewable energy are currently in operation around world, but none of these are completely free of mechanical problems and have low maintenance like thermoelectric devices. The scenario for thermoelectric technologies has changed significantly in recent times and goes beyond considering their use in spacecraft, low earth orbital satellites, or other big-ticket applications. They are now also widely being taken into consideration for a broader range of applications to meet the ever-growing demand for energy in microelectronics technology.
My Master’s research has included the fabrication of skutterudite based CoSb3 thermoelectric materials, and these have been characterized with respect to a number of properties, including electrical properties, thermal properties, low temperature physical properties, and magnetic properties. Density functional theory analysis has been conducted with the aim of analysing the physics involved.
Recommended Citation
Hossain, Ridwone, Study of Skutterudite based Thermoelectric Materials for Energy Harvesting, Master of Philosophy thesis, Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, University of Wollongong, 2020. https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses1/904
FoR codes (2008)
0912 MATERIALS ENGINEERING, 091203 Compound Semiconductors, 091207 Metals and Alloy Materials
Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.