Poly(vinylidene fluoride)/graphene nano-platelets electrically conductive composite foam for thermoelectric applications

Abstract

In this paper, we present the next generation of polymer based composite foam material fabricated from poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and graphene nano-platelets (GNPs) as secondary fillers. We discovered that such composite material has thermoelectric properties and has the potential to be used in energy harvesting applications. The samples were fabricated though melt blending methods, which is a cheaper, simpler process and can be easily scaled up to industrial level for mass production. Our results indicate that melt blending processes can produce either similar or superior results compared to traditional solvent casting methods. In addition, we utilized a novel batch foaming method and successfully created closed-cell structure for the composite material. Our results also show that the thermal conductivity of PVDF/GNP foam samples have approximately an order of magnitude drop compared to solid samples, which is desired for thermoelectric materials. Furthermore, we observed a change in the electrical conductivity threshold of the GNP fillers after foaming. We report a Seebeck coefficient of 217 μV/K for 15 wt% GNP/PVDF foam samples, which is approximately 10 times higher than values reported previously.