{"title":"Flexible Organic Thermoelectric Composites and Devices with Enhanced Performances through Fine-Tuning of Molecular Energy Levels","authors":"Dunxiao Zheng, Jingyang Zhang, Shiyuan Sun, Jianlun Liang, Yu Li, Jiye Luo* and Danqing Liu*, ","doi":"10.1021/acsaelm.4c00796","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p >Thermoelectric (TE) generators, based on thermoelectric materials, can efficiently convert thermal energy into electricity via the Seebeck effect, showing great promise for waste-heat recovery research. Recent advancements in TE composites of conductive polymer/carbon nanotubes have been significant. This study evaluates the thermoelectric properties of organic TE films and generators by combining naphthalene diimide (NDI) polymers with single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). The results reveal that P(NDI-HTO)/SWCNT composite films containing free radicals and alkyl side chains have enhanced thermoelectric properties compared to P(NDI-HT)/SWCNT composite films without free radicals and P(NDI-TP)/SWCNT composite films containing polar side chains. Among them, maximum power factors reach 264.1 ± 21.9 μW m<sup>–1</sup> K<sup>–2</sup> for p-type and 72.2 ± 1.5 μW m<sup>–1</sup> K<sup>–2</sup> for n-type composite films, marking increases of 113% and 32%, respectively, over pristine SWCNT films. Furthermore, a flexible thermoelectric generator based on P(NDI-HTO)/SWCNT, with five pairs of p–n junctions, achieves an output voltage of 28.8 mV and an output power of 1.2 μW at a 60 K temperature differential. These improvements in thermoelectric properties are primarily due to the effective modulation of molecular energy levels, enhancing the charge transfer process between NDI polymers and SWCNTs.</p>","PeriodicalId":3,"journal":{"name":"ACS Applied Electronic Materials","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ACS Applied Electronic Materials","FirstCategoryId":"88","ListUrlMain":"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsaelm.4c00796","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Thermoelectric (TE) generators, based on thermoelectric materials, can efficiently convert thermal energy into electricity via the Seebeck effect, showing great promise for waste-heat recovery research. Recent advancements in TE composites of conductive polymer/carbon nanotubes have been significant. This study evaluates the thermoelectric properties of organic TE films and generators by combining naphthalene diimide (NDI) polymers with single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). The results reveal that P(NDI-HTO)/SWCNT composite films containing free radicals and alkyl side chains have enhanced thermoelectric properties compared to P(NDI-HT)/SWCNT composite films without free radicals and P(NDI-TP)/SWCNT composite films containing polar side chains. Among them, maximum power factors reach 264.1 ± 21.9 μW m–1 K–2 for p-type and 72.2 ± 1.5 μW m–1 K–2 for n-type composite films, marking increases of 113% and 32%, respectively, over pristine SWCNT films. Furthermore, a flexible thermoelectric generator based on P(NDI-HTO)/SWCNT, with five pairs of p–n junctions, achieves an output voltage of 28.8 mV and an output power of 1.2 μW at a 60 K temperature differential. These improvements in thermoelectric properties are primarily due to the effective modulation of molecular energy levels, enhancing the charge transfer process between NDI polymers and SWCNTs.