Thermally Enhanced n-Type Thermoelectric Behavior in Completely Organic Graphene Oxide-Based Thin Films Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • AbstractAirstable ntype organic thermoelectric (TE) materials with high power factor are needed to produce efficient, lightweight devices that could be selfpowered by harnessing waste heat. Here, a completely organic ntype TE nanocomposite is achieved by depositing layers of doublewalled carbon nanotubes (DWNT) stabilized with polyethylenimine (PEI) and graphene oxide (GO) in a layerbylayer fashion from aqueous solutions. A 30 bilayer (BL) film (610 nm thick), comprised of this DWNTPEI/GO sequence, exhibits electrical conductivity of 27.3 S cm1 and a Seebeck coefficient of 30 V K1, producing a power factor of 2.5 W m1 K2. Low temperature thermal reduction (150 C for 30 min) of this composite thin film significantly improves its thermoelectric performance. An electrical conductivity of 460 S cm1 and Seebeck coefficient of 93 V K1 are achieved. A 30 BL DWNTPEI/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) film (480 nm thick) exhibits a power factor as large as 400 W m1 K2, which is one of the highest values reported for an organic ntype material. By depositing layers containing montmorillonite clay on top, these ntype nanocomposites exhibit excellent air stability. This combination of air stability and high power factor could enable efficient thermoelectric devices on flexible substrates (e.g., clothing).

published proceedings

  • ADVANCED ELECTRONIC MATERIALS

author list (cited authors)

  • Cho, C., Bittner, N., Choi, W., Hsu, J., Yu, C., & Grunlan, J. C.

citation count

  • 25

complete list of authors

  • Cho, Chungyeon||Bittner, Noah||Choi, Woongchul||Hsu, Jui-Hung||Yu, Choongho||Grunlan, Jaime C

publication date

  • November 2019

publisher