Abstract
Thermoelectric generators based on single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have great potential for use in wearable and skin electronics because of their lightweight and mechanically soft structure. However, the fabrication of air-stable n-type thermoelectric SWCNTs using conventional processes is challenging. Herein, we propose a facile process for fabricating air-stable n-type SWCNT films with anionic surfactants via drop casting followed by heat treatment. We examined different surfactants (Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate, Sodium Dodecylbenzene Sulfonate, and Sodium Cholate) and heat-treatment temperatures. The optimal SWCNT film maintained the n-type Seebeck coefficient for 35 days. Moreover, to further extend the n-type Seebeck coefficient maintenance, we periodically reheated the SWCNT film with a surfactant that had returned to the p-type Seebeck coefficient. The reheated film recovered the n-type Seebeck coefficient, and the effect of the reheating treatment lasted for several reheating cycles. Finally, we elucidated a simple mechanism for realizing an air-stable n-type Seebeck coefficient based on spectroscopic analyses of the SWCNT films.
Highlights
Thermoelectric generators based on single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have great potential for use in wearable and skin electronics because of their lightweight and mechanically soft structure
The mass of the surfactant-free single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) films were not changed at any of the heat-treatment temperatures, indicating that the heat treatment using the mixture of argon (95%) and hydrogen (5%) gases prevented the surface oxidation of the SWCNTs
The reduction in mass of the SWCNT films with sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS) surfactant was not observed until the heat-treatment temperature of 350 °C, and the mass reduction became prominent over the temperature of 400 °C
Summary
Thermoelectric generators based on single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have great potential for use in wearable and skin electronics because of their lightweight and mechanically soft structure. We propose a facile process for fabricating air-stable n-type SWCNT films with anionic surfactants via drop casting followed by heat treatment. Thermoelectric generators used as power sources for sensors should exhibit high thermoelectric performance at temperatures close to the room temperature along with small size, flexibility, and low cost of materials. To satisfy these requirements, film-type thermoelectric generators using inorganic materials such as bismuth telluride based alloys have been investigated[9,10,11,12,13,14]. These pioneering studies encouraged us to explore a facile method for obtaining n-type SWCNTs with long-term stability as well as identify the underlying mechanism for the n-type thermoelectric property
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