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

Flexible and Stretchable Self‐Powered Multi‐Sensors Based on the N‐Type Thermoelectric Response of Polyurethane/Nax(Ni‐ett)n Composites

“…[33] By recording the I-V curve of the materials, the I-intercept change refers to the irradiation intensity (temperature difference) change, while the slope changes (R) refer to the strain. Y 0 is the initial value of the NL films' response signal.…”

Design, Performance, and Application of Thermoelectric Nanogenerators

“…Recently, flexible TEGs have gradually attracted increasing attention in the novel research works and potential applications. According to the deformation characteristics, flexible TEGs specifically include stretchable, compressible, and bendable TEGs, among others . Furthermore, most of them possess the characteristics of light weight, small volume, easy to carry, and low production cost.…”

Assembly Strategy and Performance Evaluation of Flexible Thermoelectric Devices

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] One main reason lies in the high flexibility of the TE devices, which can meet the severe [1][2][3][4][5][6] One main reason lies in the high flexibility of the TE devices, which can meet the severe…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] One main reason lies in the high flexibility of the TE devices, which can meet the severe In this study, we report a comparison of the three main assembly strategies for flexible TE devices (serial, stacking, and folding), and put forward a convenient and general evaluation method for flexible device performance (FDP). [1][2][3][4][5][6] One main reason lies in the high flexibility of the TE devices, which can meet the severe In this study, we report a comparison of the three main assembly strategies for flexible TE devices (serial, stacking, and folding), and put forward a convenient and general evaluation method for flexible device performance (FDP).…”

“…[21][22][23][24] Here, we focus on the film assembly configuration, since this is the most extensively studied one till now. [1][2][3][4][5][6] One main reason lies in the high flexibility of the TE devices, which can meet the severe In essential, the assembly modes can be divided into three major strategies, namely, (b) serial, (c) folding, and (d) stacking routes.…”