Structure and thermoelectric properties of double-perovskite oxides: Sr2-xKxFeMoO6

The thermoelectric properties of the double perovskite-type oxides Sr2-xKxFeMoO6 were investigated in terms of K-doping at the A site of the oxides. The electrical conductivity, sigma, of the oxides showed a metallic behavior, decreasing monotonically from ca. 10(3)S/cm at room temperature to ca. 10(2)S/cm at 1250 K. The Seebeck coefficient, S, showed that the oxides are of n-type over the measured temperature range. The absolute value of S increased with increasing temperature. The absolute value of S at 300 K increased up to x = 0.2 and then decreased dramatically for x = 0.3-0.4. The Rietveld refinement of the XRD patterns of the oxides suggested that the increase in orbital degeneracy due to the eased distortion of FeO6 and MoO6 octahedra at x = 0.2 was responsible for the vertical bar S vertical bar maximum at this composition. The power factor, S-2 sigma, of the oxides increased sharply with increasing K-doping level; the value for Sr1.6K0.4FeMoO6 was ca. 4.2 x 10(-4)W/mK(2), which is the highest among all the samples in this study. The thermal conductivity, kappa, of the oxides generally decreased from ca. 3-5 W/mK at room temperature to ca. 2-4 W/mK at 1100 K. Because the power factor of the oxides increased above 900 K, the dimensionless figure of merit, ZT = S-2 sigma T/kappa increased dramatically above 900 K. The largest ZT value of 0.24 was observed for Sr1.6K0.4FeMoO6 at 1250 K. (C) 2012 The Ceramic Society of Japan. All rights reserved.