Fabrication of Mg2Si Thermoelectric Materials by Mechanical Alloying and Spark-Plasma Sintering Process
A mixture of pure Mg and Si powders with an atomic ratio 2:1 has been subjected to mechanical alloying (MA) at room temperature to prepare the Mg2Si thermoelectric material. Mg2Si intermetallic compound with a grain size of 50 nm can be obtained by MA of Mg66.7Si33.3 powders for 60 hours and subsequently annealed at 620 °C. Consolidation of the MA powders was performed in a spark plasma sintering (SPS) machine using graphite dies up to 800–900 °C under 50 MPa. The shrinkage of consolidated samples during SPS was significant at about 250 °C and 620 °C. X-ray diffraction data shows that the SPS compact from 60 h MA powders consolidated up to 800 °C consists of only nanocrystalline Mg2Si compound with a grain size of 100 nm.