Herein, we demonstrate that a flexible, air-permeable, thermoelectric (TE) power generator can be prepared by applying a TE polymer (e.g. poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate)) coated commercial fabric and subsequently by linking the coated strips with a conductive connection (e.g. using fine metal wires). The poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate) coated fabric shows very stable TE properties from 300 K to 390 K. The fabric device can generate a TE voltage output (V) of 4.3 mV at a temperature difference (ΔT) of 75.2 K. The potential for using fabric TE devices to harvest body temperature energy has been discussed. Fabric-based TE devices may be useful for the development of new power generating clothing and self-powered wearable electronics.
Inkjet printing (IJP) technology, adapted from home and office printing, has proven to be an essential research tool and industrial manufacturing technique in a wide range of printed electronic technologies, including optoelectronics. Its primary advantage over other deposition methods is the low-cost and maskless on-demand patterning, which offers unmatched freedom-of-design. Additional benefits include the efficient use of materials, contactless high-resolution deposition, and scalability, enabling rapid translation of learning from small-scale, laboratory-based research into large-scale industrial roll-to-roll manufacturing. In the development of organic solar cells (OSCs), IJP has enabled the printing of many of the multiple functional layers which comprise the complete cell as part of an additive printing scheme. Although IJP is only recently employed in perovskite solar cell (PeSC) fabrication, it is already showing great promise and is anticipated to find broader application with this class of materials. As OSCs and PeSCs share many common functional materials and device architectures, this review presents a progress report on the IJP of OSCs and PeSCs in order to facilitate knowledge transfer between the two technologies, with critical analyses of the challenges and opportunities also presented.
A facile method to prepare flexible n-type Ag 2 Se/Se/polypyrrole (PPy) composite films is developed. First, Ag 2 Se nanostructures (NSs) are wet chemically synthesized; PPy is then in situ polymerized at the surface of the Ag 2 Se NSs; and finally, the Ag 2 Se/Se/PPy composite film on a porous nylon membrane is fabricated by a vacuum-assisted filtration process followed by hot pressing. An optimal composite film shows an exceptionally high power factor of ≈2240 µW m −1 K −2 at 300 K, mainly because of the synergistic effect between well-developed crystalline Ag 2 Se grains and a small amount of Se and PPy. The film also possesses outstanding flexibility (only about 6.5% decrease in electrical conductivity after 1000 times bending along a rod with a radius of 4 mm). Moreover, a flexible thermoelectric generator composed of six legs of the film outputs a voltage of 21.2 mV and a maximum power of 4.04 µW (corresponding power density of 37.6 W m −2 ) at a temperature difference of 34.1 K, verifying exceptionally high thermoelectric properties. This work shows the promise of the as-prepared composite film for practical applications in wearable devices and will surely promote the research and development of flexible TE generators.
TiO 2 loaded with crystalline nano silver (c-Ag/TiO 2 ) was successfully synthesized by a one-step low-temperature hydrothermal method in aqueous solution using tetra-n-butyl titanate and AgNO 3 as precursors. The structure and morphology were characterized by Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV-Vis absorption spectra (UV-Vis) and fluorescence spectra (FS). The photocatalytic activity was tested with photocatalytic degradation of hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) gas. The results show that the nano silver particles of Ag/TiO 2 prepared by the one-step lowtemperature hydrothermal method are crystalline, while they are amorphous when prepared by the conventional UV reduction deposition method (a-Ag/TiO 2 ). The photocatalytic activity of the c-Ag/TiO 2 prepared by the hydrothermal method was found to have a significant improvement for H 2 S degradation, being more than 2 times over that of the a-Ag/TiO 2 prepared by the conventional method.
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