He Yongjie, Zhang Qi, Cheng Hanlin, Liu Yang, Shu Yue, Geng Yang, Zheng Yujie, Qin Bo, Zhou Yongli, Chen Shanshan, Li Jing, Li Meng, Odunmbaku George Omololu, Li Chen, Shumilova Tatyana, Ouyang Jianyong, Sun Kuan
MOE Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems, CQU-NUS Renewable Energy Materials & Devices Joint Laboratory, School of Energy & Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117574.
J Phys Chem Lett. 2022 May 26;13(20):4621-4627. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c00845. Epub 2022 May 19.
Ionic thermoelectric (i-TE) material with mobile ions as charge carriers has the potential to generate large thermal voltages at low operating temperatures. This study highlights the role of ions in i-TE hydrogels employing a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) polymer matrix and a number of ion providers, e.g., KOH, KNO, KCl, KBr, NaI, KI, and CsI. The relationship between the intrinsic physical parameters of the ion and the thermoelectric performance is established, indicating the ability to influence the hydrogen bond by the ion is a crucial factor. Among these i-TE hydrogels, the PVA/CsI hydrogel exhibits the largest ionic Seebeck coefficient, reaching 52.9 mV K, which is the largest of all i-TE materials reported to date. In addition, our work demonstrates the influence of ions on polymer configuration and provides an avenue for ion selection in the Soret effect in ionic thermoelectrics.
以移动离子作为电荷载流子的离子热电（i-TE）材料在低温工作条件下有产生大的热电压的潜力。本研究突出了离子在采用聚乙烯醇（PVA）聚合物基体和多种离子供体（如KOH、KNO、KCl、KBr、NaI、KI和CsI）的i-TE水凝胶中的作用。建立了离子的固有物理参数与热电性能之间的关系，表明离子影响氢键的能力是一个关键因素。在这些i-TE水凝胶中，PVA/CsI水凝胶表现出最大的离子塞贝克系数，达到52.9 mV K，这是迄今为止报道的所有i-TE材料中最大的。此外，我们的工作证明了离子对聚合物构型的影响，并为离子热电器件中索雷特效应的离子选择提供了一条途径。
