Efficient debundling of few-walled CNTs by donor-acceptor polymer for high performance and flexible thermoelectric power generators
발표자
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초록
내용
Recently, soluble conjugated polymer/carbon nanotube (CNT) composites have been actively studied as thermoelectric (TE) materials, but the effects of the wrapping polymers on debundling of CNTs are not fully understood yet. Herein, we introduce novel polymer/CNT composites composed of donor-acceptor (D-A) type polymers and few-walled CNTs (FWCNT). Three kinds of D-A polymers are utilized to disperse FWCNTs and their properties are compared with the composite using conventional donor-only poly(3-hexylthiophene). We found that effective de-bundling of FWCNTs is occurred with the aid of strong intermolecular interaction and high backbone planarity of the D-A polymers. As results, the D-A polymer/FWCNT composite films showed superior TE properties with higher electrical percolation, and resulting flexible TE generators exhibited maximum power output of 0.21 μW (∆T = 20 K). The power output could be further improved by up to 6.76 μW (∆T = 30 K) by doping the FWCNTs with ionic liquids.