Thermodynamic analysis of thermite synthesis for thermoelectric Fe2VAl

Abstract For minimizing exergy loss, we studied new synthesizing methods of Fe 2 VAl for thermoelectric application, theoretically. Fe 2 VAl has been produced by arc-melting method, which consumed much time and energy. We proposed single thermite synthesis method and double thermite synthesis method, which utilizing exothermic heat of aluminothermic reduction of respective V 2 O 5 and, both V 2 O 5 and Fe 2 O 3 for alloying Fe 2 VAl through inducing aluminothermic reductions and alloying reaction simultaneously. The exergy analysis showed that the total exergy loss per 1 mol of Fe 2 VAl was 808 kJ in conventional arc-melting, 562 kJ in proposed single thermite synthesis method using aluminothermic reduction of V 2 O 5 , and 1313 kJ in proposed double thermite synthesis using aluminothermic reductions of both V 2 O 5 and Fe 2 O 3 . It was found that the proposed single thermite synthesis decreased the exergy loss by 30% of that of conventional arc-melting method and consumed the least exergy due to the effective utilization of sensible heat of V for alloying of Fe 2 VAl.