Influence of electronic type of SWNTs on the thermoelectric properties of SWNTs/PANI composite films

Abstract

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have emerged as one of the leading additives for improving the thermoelectric properties of organic materials due to their unique structure and excellent electronic transport properties. However, since as-grown SWNTs possess different chirality, it is of high interest to determine the influence of electronic type of SWNTs on the thermoelectric properties of SWNTs/PANI composite films. Herein, we utilized metallic SWNTs (SWNT-M) and semiconducting SWNTs (SWNT-S) to prepare SWNTs/PANI composite films and studied their thermoelectric properties, respectively. Experimentally, the maximum thermoelectric power factor reached 51 μW m−1 K−2 for the 19 wt% SWNT-S/PANI composite films, while that value was only 16 μW m−1 K−2 for the 19 wt% SWNT-M/PANI composite films. The better power factor of SWNT-S/PANI composite films may be attributed to the more significantly enhanced Seebeck coefficient resulting from the effective energy filtering effect at the interfaces between SWNT-S and PANI. Our results reveal the influence of electronic type of SWNTs on the thermoelectric properties of composites, which will drive ongoing efforts to utilize SWNTs as fillers in nanocomposites for optimal thermoelectric properties.