Fabrication of PEDOT:PSS/Ag2Se Nanowires for Polymer-Based Thermoelectric Applications.

Dabin Park,Minsu Kim,Jooheon Kim

doi:10.3390/polym12122932

Abstract

Flexible Ag2Se NW/PEDOT:PSS thermoelectric composite films with different Ag2Se contents (10, 20, 30, 50, 70, and 80 wt.%) are fabricated. The Ag2Se nanowires are first fabricated with solution mixing. After that, Ag2Se NW/PEDOT:PSS composite film was fabricated using a simple drop-casting method. To evaluate the potential applications of the Ag2Se NW/PEDOT:PSS composite, their thermoelectric properties are analyzed according to their Ag2Se contents, and strategies for maximizing the thermoelectric power factor are discussed. The maximum room-temperature power factor of composite film (178.59 μW/m·K2) is obtained with 80 wt.% Ag2Se nanowires. In addition, the composite film shows outstanding durability after 1000 repeat bending cycles. This work provides an important strategy for the fabrication of high-performance flexible thermoelectric composite films, which can be extended to other inorganic/organic composites and will certainly promote their development and thermoelectric applications.

Highlights

Thermoelectric devices can directly convert thermal energy to electrical energy, and are promising for addressing the future energy crisis [1,2,3,4]
The present authors consider the flexible composite film consisting of the Ag2 Se NW and PEDOT:PSS to be an essential contribution to the development of inorganic/organic flexible thermoelectric applications
Ag2Se NW/PEDOT:PSS composite films with different Ag2Se NW contents were prepared via a simple method

Summary

Introduction

Thermoelectric devices can directly convert thermal energy to electrical energy, and are promising for addressing the future energy crisis [1,2,3,4]. The efficiency of a thermoelectric material is characterized by the dimensionless figure of merit, ZT = S2 ·σ·T/к, where S is the Seebeck coefficient, σ is the electrical conductivity, к is the thermal conductivity, and T is the absolute temperature. As these equations show, low thermal conductivity and high-power factor (PF = S2 ·σ) are important to achieve high ZT. Luo et al studied the DMSO post-treatment of PEDOT:PSS thin films to give an improve electrical conductivity of ~930 S/cm [25] Due to their low Seebeck coefficients, organic thermoelectric materials continue to display lower power factors than inorganic materials. The present authors consider the flexible composite film consisting of the Ag2 Se NW and PEDOT:PSS to be an essential contribution to the development of inorganic/organic flexible thermoelectric applications

Materials

Preparation of Ag2 Se NWs

Characterization

Results and Discussion

Seebeck x σ

Conclusions