In the present study, the powder metallurgical fabrication of thermoelectric materials has been studied with specific interest to control the microstructure by the mechanical grinding process. The thermoelectric powders with a various particle size distribution were prepared by the combination of the mechanical milling and blending processes. The specific electric resistivity of the sintered bodies mainly depended on the orientation of the crystal structure rather than the particle size of the raw powders.

In the present study, the focus is on the synthesis of nanosized WC powder by the chemical vapor condensation proces. The synthesized W-C system powder by the CVC process shows W2C, W, WO3 phases and can not shows WC phase. After recarburization heat treatment under mixture gas atmosphere of argon and hydrogen gases, the synthesized W-C system powder fully transformed to the pure WC. The synthesized WC powder after recarburization heat treatment has an average particle size of 20 nm. The nano-sized WC powder can be prepared by the combination of the CVC process and heat treatment methods.

Thermoelectric thick film was fabricated by screen printing process with using p-type Bi-Te-Sb powders. The powder was synthesized by melting, milling and sintering process and hydrogen reduced to enhance the thermoelectric property. The thick film of Bi-Te-Sb powder was fabricated by screen printing method and baked at the optimized conditions. The thermal conductivity, the electrical resistivity and Seeback coefficient of thick film were measured and the thermoelectric performance was analyzed in terms of film characteristics and its microstructure. Finally, the feasibility of thermoelectric thick film into micro cooling device on CPU chip was discussed in this study.

In the present, the focus is on the synthesis of nanostructured TiC/Co composite powder by the spray thermal conversion process using titanium dioxide powder has an average particle size of 50 nm and cobalt nitrate as raw materials. The titanium-cobalt-oxygen based oxide powder prepared by the combination of the spray drying and desalting methods. The titanium-cobalt-oxygen based oxide powder carbothermally reduced by the solid carbon. The synthesized TiC-15wt.%Co composite powder at 1473K for 2 hours had an average particle size of 150 nm.

New manufacturing processes, such as thermochemical, mechanochemical and chemical vapor condensation processes have been developed to obtain nanostructured WC/Co materials. Nanoscale size WC/Co composite powders of near 100-150nm can be synthesizes by thermochemical and mechanochemical processes using water soluble precursors. Non-agglomerated and nano sized WC powder can be synthesized by the chemical vapor condensation process using metallorganic precursors as starting materials. In this paper, the scientific and technical issues on synthesis and consolidation of nanostructured WC/Co alloys produced by new chemical processes are introduced.