Abstract
Composite films of indacenodithiophene-bezothiadazole copolymers bearing polar side chains (P1) and single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are found to show a competitive thermoelectric performance compared to their analogous polymers with aliphatic side chains (P2). The enhanced power factors could be attributed to the stronger interfacial interactions between the P1/SWCNTs compared to that of P2/SWCNTs containing the same ratio of SWCNTs. A maximum power factor of 161.34 μW m−1 K−2 was obtained for the composite films of P1/SWCNTs for a filler content of 50 wt%, which is higher than that of P2/SWCNTs (139.06 μW m−1 K−2, 50 wt%). Our work sheds light on the design of side-chains in efficient conjugated polymers/SWCNTs thermoelectric materials and contributes to the understanding of their thermoelectric properties.
Highlights
In the development of next-generation green energy materials, great attention has been paid to organic thermoelectric materials (OTEs) which can directly convert thermal energy into electricity [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Conjugated polymers (CPs) are an intriguing class of semiconductors widely used in the field of organic electronics (such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), sensors, etc.) [8,9,10,11,12] due to their low toxicity, low thermal conductivity and mechanical flexibility
Organic materials generally possess large Seebeck coefficients (S) and low thermal conductivity [13,14,15,16,17,18,19], the main challenge of achieving high-performance OTEs is how to improve the electrical conductivity of CPs without sacrificing their large Seebeck coefficients and low thermal conductivity [20,21]
Summary
In the development of next-generation green energy materials, great attention has been paid to organic thermoelectric materials (OTEs) which can directly convert thermal energy into electricity [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Organic materials generally possess large Seebeck coefficients (S) and low thermal conductivity [13,14,15,16,17,18,19], the main challenge of achieving high-performance OTEs is how to improve the electrical conductivity of CPs without sacrificing their large Seebeck coefficients and low thermal conductivity [20,21]. A few attempts to fine tune the interfacial interactions of the composites and improve their thermoelectric performance through enhancing the charge carrier mobility have been reported [34,35,36]. The introduction of polar side-chains into CPs has been considered an efficient method to increase the interfacial interactions between CPs and SWCNTs, improving the thermoelectric performance. P2/SWCNTs (139.06 μW m−1 K−2 ) for the same compositing ratio
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