Chang Yun, Huang Yi-Hsuan, Lin Po-Shen, Hong Shao-Huan, Tung Shih-Huang, Liu Cheng-Liang
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2024 Jan 24;16(3):3764-3777. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c15651. Epub 2024 Jan 16.
Recent research efforts have concentrated on the development of flexible and stretchable thermoelectric (TE) materials. However, significant challenges have emerged, including increased resistance and reduced electrical conductivity when subjected to strain. To address these issues, rigid semiconducting polymers and elastic insulating polymers have been incorporated and nanoconfinement effects have been exploited to enhance the charge mobility. Herein, a feasible approach is presented for fabricating stretchable TE materials by using a doped semiconducting polymer blend consisting of either poly(3-hexylthiophene) () or poly(3,6-dithiophen-2-yl-2,5-di(2-decyltetradecyl)-pyrrolo[3,4-]pyrrole-1,4-dione--thienylenevinylene-2,5-yl) () as the rigid polymer with styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene () as the elastic polymer. In particular, the blend composition is optimized to achieve a continuous network structure with , thereby improving the stretchability. The optimized polymer films exhibit well-ordered microstructural aggregates, indicative of good miscibility with FeCl and enhanced doping efficiency. Notably, a lower activation energy and higher charge-carrier concentration contribute to an improved electrical conductivity under high tensile strain, with a maximum output power of 1.39 nW at a Δ of 22.4 K. These findings offer valuable insights and serve as guidelines for the development of stretchable p-n junction thermoelectric generators based on doped semiconducting polymer blends with potential applications in wearable electronics and energy harvesting.
近期的研究工作主要集中在柔性和可拉伸热电（TE）材料的开发上。然而，出现了一些重大挑战，包括在受到应变时电阻增加和电导率降低。为了解决这些问题，已引入刚性半导体聚合物和弹性绝缘聚合物，并利用纳米限域效应来提高电荷迁移率。在此，提出了一种可行的方法，通过使用由聚（3-己基噻吩）（ ）或聚（3,6-二噻吩-2-基-2,5-二（2-癸基十四烷基）-吡咯并[3,4-]吡咯-1,4-二酮 - 噻吩亚乙烯基-2,5-基）（ ）作为刚性聚合物与苯乙烯-乙烯-丁烯-苯乙烯（ ）作为弹性聚合物组成的掺杂半导体聚合物共混物来制备可拉伸TE材料。特别地，优化共混物组成以实现具有 的连续网络结构，从而提高拉伸性。优化后的聚合物薄膜呈现出有序的微观结构聚集体，表明与FeCl具有良好的混溶性并提高了掺杂效率。值得注意的是，较低的活化能和较高的电荷载流子浓度有助于在高拉伸应变下提高电导率，在Δ为22.4 K时最大输出功率为1.39 nW。这些发现提供了有价值的见解，并为基于掺杂半导体聚合物共混物的可拉伸p-n结热电发电机的开发提供了指导方针，在可穿戴电子设备和能量收集方面具有潜在应用。
