Effect of SrTiO3 Nanoparticles in Conductive Polymer on the Thermoelectric Performance for Efficient Thermoelectrics.

Jooheon Kim,Dabin Park,Hyun Ju

doi:10.3390/polym12040777

Abstract

We present hybrid organic inorganic materials, namely, SrTiO3/polyaniline (PANI) composites, with high thermoelectric performance; samples with various SrTiO3 contents (10, 20, 30, and 50 wt.%) were prepared. The PANI component was obtained through the polymerization of aniline monomers, followed by camphosulfonic acid-doping to enhance its electrical conductivity. SrTiO3, with a high Seebeck coefficient, was used as the N-type inorganic componenet; it was synthesized via a one-pot solvothermal methods and, then, dispersed into the conductive PANI matrix. The SrTiO3 content influenced the Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity of the resulting composites. The variations in the thermoelectric properties of the SrTiO3/PANI composites consequently changed their power factor; at room temperature, the highest value was ~49.6 μW·m/K2, which is 17 times larger than that of pure PANI.

Highlights

Thermoelectric (TE) power generation is a core technology for renewable energy harvesting and greenhouse gas reduction because of the potential energy conversion between thermal and electrical energies [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
The previous studies generally focused on inorganic TE materials such as Te-based compounds (Bi2 Te3, Ag2 Te, and Cu2 Te) [10,11,12], Se alloys (SnSe, Cu2 Se) [13,14,15], and conducting oxides (NaCo2 O4, CaMnO3 ) [16,17]; these materials are typically expensive and brittle, which prevents their application in large areas
We suggest a strategy to increase the thermoelectric performance by fabrication of hybrid polymer-based TE composites, namely, SrTiO3 /PANI composites

Summary

Introduction

Thermoelectric (TE) power generation is a core technology for renewable energy harvesting and greenhouse gas reduction because of the potential energy conversion between thermal and electrical energies [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. TE materials have recently been widely used for energy harvesting due to their unique advantages, i.e., low cost, low processing temperature, and mechanical flexibility. In this regard, we have developed high-efficiency metal polymer TE devices [18,19,20]. Ju et al enhanced the thermoelectric properties of a conductive PEDOT:PSS matrix by incorporation SnSe nanosheets [24]. Polyaniline (PANI) is another promising conductive polymer due to its unique characteristics, namely, high σ, and low κ [25,26,27,28]; Anno et al prepared camphorsulfonic acid (CSA)-doped PANI [29], observing an increased PF of ~0.02 μWm/K2. We expected that the SrTiO3 nanoparticles were randomly dispersed within the PANI matrix, providing a highly efficient thermoelectric performance

Materials

Preparation of PANI

Synthesis of SrTiO3

Findings

Discussion

Conclusions