Elephant ivory: A low thermal conductivity, high strength nanocomposite

2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 287-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. Jakubinek ◽  
Champika J. Samarasekera ◽  
Mary Anne White

There has been much recent interest in heat transport in nanostructures, and alsoin the structure, properties, and growth of biological materials. Here we present measurements of thermal properties of a nanostructured biomineral, ivory. The room-temperature thermal conductivity of ivory is anomalously low in comparison with its constituent components. Low-temperature (2–300 K) measurements ofthermal conductivity and heat capacity reveal a glass-like temperature dependenceof the thermal conductivity and phonon mean free path, consistent with increased phonon-boundary scattering associated with nanostructure. These results suggest that biomineral-like nanocomposite structures could be useful in the design of novel high-strength materials for low thermal conductivity applications.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1314
Author(s):  
Haihua Wu ◽  
Kui Chen ◽  
Yafeng Li ◽  
Chaoqun Ren ◽  
Yu Sun ◽  
...  

The 3D graphite/ceramic composite prototyping parts directly prepared by selective laser sintering (SLS) were porous, which led to poor strength and low thermal conductivity. In order to obtain low thermal conductivity and high strength, its thermal conductivity and compressive strength were adjusted by changing the mixture powder composition and adding post-processing. The result showed that the addition of silicon powder in the mixture powder could significantly improve the compressive strength and thermal conductivity. The addition of expanded graphite was beneficial to the formation of the closed pores in the matrix, which slightly reduced the compressive strength but significantly reduced the thermal conductivity. The 3D graphite/ceramic composite part showed an order of magnitude improvement in compressive strength (from 1.25 to 13.87 MPa) but relatively small change in thermal conductivity (from 1.40 to 2.12 W·m−1K−1) and density (from 0.53 to 1.13 g·cm−3) by post-processing. Reasonable mixture powder composition and post-processing were determined and realized the possibility of fabricating a 3D graphite/ceramic composite part with low thermal conductivity but high compressive strength. Furthermore, it could be used for the repeated casting of steel castings, and through the comparative analysis of casting defects, the prepared graphite/ceramic composite part was expected to replace water glass sand mold.


Author(s):  
Ravi Prasher

Thermal conductivity of packed bed of nanoparticles is calculated in this paper. Results show that effective thermal conductivity of nanoparticle bed can be very low. Thermal conductivity of the nanoparticle bed can be smaller than the thermal conductivity of air. Thermal conductivity depends on pressure, surface energy of the nanoparticle, and phonon mean free path.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (21) ◽  
pp. 1550149 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Pansari ◽  
V. Gedam ◽  
B. K. Sahoo

In this paper, the effect of built-in-polarization field on lattice thermal conductivity of AlN/GaN/AlN quantum well (QW) has been theoretically investigated. The built-in-polarization field at the hetero-interface of GaN/AlN modifies elastic constant, phonon velocity and Debye temperature of GaN QW. The relaxation time of acoustic phonons (AP) in various scattering processes in GaN with and without built-in-polarization field has been computed at room temperature. The result shows that combined relaxation time of AP is enhanced by built-in-polarization field and implies a longer mean free path. The revised intrinsic and extrinsic thermal conductivities of GaN have been estimated. The theoretical analysis shows that up to a certain temperature the polarization field acts as negative effect and reduces the thermal conductivities. However, after this temperature both thermal conductivities are significantly contributed by polarization field. This gives the idea of temperature dependence of polarization effect which signifies the pyro-electric character of GaN. The intrinsic thermal conductivity at room temperature for with and without polarization mechanism is found to be 491 Wm -1 K -1 and 409 Wm -1 K -1, respectively i.e., 20% enhancement. However, the extrinsic thermal conductivity at room temperature for with and without polarization mechanism is found to be 280 Wm -1 K -1 and 245 Wm -1 K -1, respectively i.e., 13% enhancement. The method we have developed may be taken into account during the simulation of heat transport in optoelectronic nitride devices to minimize the self-heating processes and in polarization engineering strategies to optimize the thermoelectric performance of GaN alloys.


1993 ◽  
Vol 115 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. E. Goodson ◽  
M. I. Flik

Electrons and phonons are the carriers of heat in the a-b plane of the high-Tc superconductor YBa2Cu3O7. In the absence of boundary scattering, the a-b plane thermal conductivity and the mean free path of each carrier type are calculated as functions of temperature using kinetic theory, the two-fluid model of the superconducting state, and experimental data for the thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity of a single crystal. The reduction by boundary scattering of the effective a-b plane thermal conductivity along an epitaxial YBa2Cu3O7 film is predicted as a function of temperature and film thickness. The size effect on the phonon conductivity dominates over the size effect on the electron conductivity. The predicted electron mean free path is limited by scattering on defects and is in very good agreement with experimental data from infrared spectroscopy.


Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. eabh1619
Author(s):  
Quinn D. Gibson ◽  
Tianqi Zhao ◽  
Luke M. Daniels ◽  
Helen C. Walker ◽  
Ramzy Daou ◽  
...  

The thermal conductivity of crystalline materials cannot be arbitrarily low as the intrinsic limit depends on the phonon dispersion. We used complementary strategies to suppress the contribution of the longitudinal and transverse phonons to heat transport in layered materials containing different types of intrinsic chemical interface. BiOCl and Bi2O2Se encapsulate these design principles for longitudinal and transverse modes respectively, and the bulk superlattice material Bi4O4SeCl2 combines these effects by ordering both interface types within its unit cell to reach an extremely low thermal conductivity of 0.1 W K−1 m−1 at room temperature along its stacking direction. This value comes within a factor of four of air. We demonstrated that chemical control of the spatial arrangement of distinct interfaces can synergically modify vibrational modes to minimize thermal conductivity.


2000 ◽  
Vol 626 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Fornari ◽  
D. J. Singh ◽  
I. I. Mazin ◽  
J. L. Feldman

ABSTRACTThe key challenges in discovering new high ZT thermoelectrics are understanding how the nearly contradictory requirements of high electrical conductivity, high thermopower and low thermal conductivity can be achieved in a single material and based on this identifying suitable compounds. First principles calculations provide a material specific microscopic window into the relevant properties and their origins. We illustrate the utility of the approach by presenting specific examples of compounds belonging to the class of skutterudites that are or are not good thermoelectrics along with the microscopic reasons. Based on our computational exploration we make a suggestion for achieving higher values of ZT at room temperature in bulk materials, namely n-type La(Ru,Rh)4Sb12 with high La-filling.


2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (05) ◽  
pp. 1450034 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Ramachandran ◽  
N. E. Rajeevan ◽  
P. P. Pradyumnan

In this paper, we report the synthesis, thermal and electrical property studies of Ni 0.5 Gd 0.2 Bi 0.3 CoO 3, a new material for thermoelectric applications. The material was synthesized by solid state reaction route taking BiCoO 3 as basic matrix by substituting bismuth with nickel and gadolinium. Structural studies using room temperature XRD and room temperature Raman spectrum established cubic structure for Ni 0.5 Bi 0.5 CoO 3 and tetragonal structure for Ni 0.5 Gd 0.2 Bi 0.3 CoO 3. The SEM micrograph of the samples revealed crystallites of micrometer dimension with varying grain size. The sample showed interestingly low thermal conductivity and VRH mechanism was found to dominate in the electrical conduction at low temperature regime. The low thermal conductivity and moderate electrical conductivity is suggestive of strong candidature of the material for thermoelectric applications.


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