Thermoelectric Polymer Aerogels for Pressure–Temperature Sensing Applications

Abstract

The evolution of our society is characterized by an increasing flow of information from things to the internet. Sensors will become the corner stone of internet-of-everything as they track various parameters in our society and sent them to the cloud for analysis, forecast or learning.With the many parameters to sense, sensors are becoming complex and difficult to manufacture.To reduce the complexity of manufacturing, one can instead create advanced functional materials that react to multiple stimuli. To this end, conducting polymer aerogels are promising materials as they combine elasticity and sensitivity to pressure and temperature and they could eventually be functionalized further with chemical and biosensing molecules. However, the challenge is to read independently pressure and temperature output signal without cross-talk of these parameters. Here, we demonstrate a strategy to fully decouple temperature and pressure reading in a dual-parameter sensor based on thermoelectric polymer aerogels. We found that aerogels made of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) can display either semiconducting or close to semimetallic properties upon exposure to high boiling point polar solvents, such as dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO). As DMSO acts as a secondary dopant, the conductivity of the PNG aerogel can be increased by more than two orders of magnitude, resulting into greatly enhanced pressure sensitivity. Importantly, because of the temperatureindependent charge transport observed for DMSO-treated PEDOT-based aerogel, a decoupled

Lyophilization-Free Approach to the Fabrication of Conductive Polymer Foams Enabling Photo-Thermo-Electrical-Induced Cell Differentiation under Global Illumination

“…We reason that the APTES molecules play an important role in strengthening the pore walls through the well-known coupling effect of silane. 25,26 Such a structural reinforcement is critical to resist a large capillary pressure and resultant force during solvent evaporation, 27 which is consistent with further mechanical tests (Figure 2c and Figure S7). The addition of APTES greatly improves the mechanical strength, as evidenced by the enhanced compressive modulus (Figure 2c).…”

Self‐Sensing Paper Actuators Based on Graphite–Carbon Nanotube Hybrid Films

“…Similar behavior has been observed in poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) aerogels and hybrid microstructures . For example, a temperature self‐compensated pressure sensor made of dimethylsulfoxide treated PEDO:PSS aerogel could precisely read the pressure level at different temperatures (20–45 °C) . Compared to previous reports, our strategy is easy‐to‐fabricate, scalable, cost‐effective, and environmentally friendly, accompanied by a broader temperature self‐compensation range.…”

“…The respective RMSD Thermal of graphite, CNT, hybrid 1, hybrid 2, and hybrid 3 films was 3.58%, 0.85%, 0.82%, 0.32%, and 0.18%, indicating significant temperature self‐compensation of hybrid 3 films. Similar behavior has been observed in poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) aerogels and hybrid microstructures . For example, a temperature self‐compensated pressure sensor made of dimethylsulfoxide treated PEDO:PSS aerogel could precisely read the pressure level at different temperatures (20–45 °C) .…”

Modulating carrier transport by cross-dimensional compositing of Ag 2 Se/MXene for high-performance flexible thermoelectrics

“…3d). The response efficiency of our device is much faster compared with previous studies 30,51–57 (Fig. 5e).…”