Zinc sulphide (ZnS) nanoparticles were fabricated by hydrothermal synthesis at 180℃ for 12 h. Two kinds of ZnS powder (hydrothermal synthesized ZnS and commercial ZnS) were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for phase and microstructure, respectively. The XRD patterns showed that all ZnS nanoparticles have a sphalerite (cubic) structure. The nanoparticles of two different ZnS powders were sintered by spark plasma sintering. The sintered ZnS were analyzed by XRD, SEM, and FT-IR. We found that the transmittance of the infrared region is highly dependent on the density and crystal structure of sintered ZnS and the purity of the starting ZnS powder.

Mo-Cu alloys have been widely used for heat sink materials, vacuum technology, automobile, and many other applications due to their excellent physical and electric properties. Especially, Mo-Cu composites with 5 ~ 20 wt.% copper are widely used for the heavy duty service contacts due to their excellent properties like low coefficient of thermal expansion, wear resistance, high temperature strength, and prominent electrical and thermal conductivity. In most of the applications, highly-dense Mo-Cu materials with homogeneous microstructure are required for better performance. In this study, Mo-Cu alloys were prepared by PBM (planetary ball milling) and SPS (spark plasma sintering). The effect of Cu with contents of 5~20 wt.% on the microstructure and thermal properties of Mo-Cu alloys was investigated.

Thermoelectric materials have been the topic of intensive research due to their unique dual capability of directly converting heat into electricity or electrical power into cooling or heating. Bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) is the best-known commercially used thermoelectric material in the bulk form for cooling and power generation applications In this work we focus on the large scale synthesis of nanostructured undoped bulk nanostructured Bi2Te3 materials by employing a novel bottom-up solution-based chemical approach. Spark plasma sintering has been employed for compaction and sintering of Bi2Te3 nanopowders, resulting in relative density of g·cm-3 while preserving the nanostructure. The average grain size of the final compacts was obtained as 200 nm after sintering. An improved NS bulkundoped Bi2Te3 is achieved with sintered at 400℃ for 4 min holding time.