Effect of Sintering Temperature to The Thermal Conductivity of Cu doped ZnO

Abstract

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) is a one of interesting materials to be developed as semiconductor materials because of its advantages for many applications, while research about Cu doped ZnO in the pellet form is seldom. This research aims to synthesize the material for p-type thermoelectric semiconductor of ZnxCu1-xO and to obtain the thermal conductivity as a one of important material characteristic of thermoelectric semiconductor. Zinc nitrate tetra hydrate as a raw material was mixed with copper nitrate trihidrate, dried, calcined, and compacted to be a pellet form finally. Furthermore, the sintering process was conducted at temperature from 1,100oC to 1,500 C. The thermal conductivity was measured using steady state method. The highest thermal conductivity of 3.14 W/mK was obtained by which sintering temperature of 1,300 C and operational temperature of 450

o C.