Ternary composites based on single-walled carbon nanotube
(SWNT),
poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS),
and PEDOT nanowire (NW) were prepared by solution mixing methods.
Studies show that Seebeck coefficient of the composites with SWNT
and PEDOT:PSS could be further enhanced by addition of PEDOT NW to
form ternary hybrids, which is attributable to interfacial carrier
energy filtering effect which selectively filters the low-energy carriers
and overpasses the high-energy carriers at NW/PEDOT:PSS interfaces.
The addition of SWNT into the system leads to high electrical conductivity
of the resulting ternary composites. The combination of high Seebeck
coefficient and high conductivity results in the ternary composite
with high power factor (PF), and an optimized PF of ∼352 μW
m–1 K–2 at room temperature is
obtained. The mechanism behind the enhancement of the Seebeck coefficient
is also elucidated by studying the carrier transport phenomena through
PEDOT NW/PEDOT:PSS interfaces via tuning of the interfacial energy
barriers that resulted from different doping levels of PEDOT NWs.
Thermoelectric generators assembled by five optimized composite films
exhibit a maximum output power of 414 nW when ΔT = 40 K, which demonstrates the potential capability for practical
thermal energy harvesting.
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