Experimental Study on Thermal Conductivity and Hardness of Cu and Ni Nanoparticle Packed Bed for Thermoelectric Application.

The hot-wire method is applied in this paper to probe the thermal conductivity (TC) of Cu and Ni nanoparticle packed beds (NPBs). A different decrease tendency of TC versus porosity than that currently known is discovered. The relationship between the porosity and nanostructure is investigated to explain this unusual phenomenon.