Fabrication of PEDOT:PSS/Ag2Se Nanowires for Polymer-Based Thermoelectric Applications

Dabin Park; Minsu Kim; Jooheon Kim

doi:10.3390/polym12122932

Fabrication of PEDOT:PSS/Ag₂Se Nanowires for Polymer-Based Thermoelectric Applications

Polymers (Basel). 2020 Dec 8;12(12):2932. doi: 10.3390/polym12122932.

Authors

Dabin Park¹, Minsu Kim¹, Jooheon Kim¹

Affiliation

¹ School of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Korea.

Abstract

Flexible Ag₂Se NW/PEDOT:PSS thermoelectric composite films with different Ag₂Se contents (10, 20, 30, 50, 70, and 80 wt.%) are fabricated. The Ag₂Se nanowires are first fabricated with solution mixing. After that, Ag₂Se NW/PEDOT:PSS composite film was fabricated using a simple drop-casting method. To evaluate the potential applications of the Ag₂Se NW/PEDOT:PSS composite, their thermoelectric properties are analyzed according to their Ag₂Se contents, and strategies for maximizing the thermoelectric power factor are discussed. The maximum room-temperature power factor of composite film (178.59 μW/m·K²) is obtained with 80 wt.% Ag₂Se nanowires. In addition, the composite film shows outstanding durability after 1000 repeat bending cycles. This work provides an important strategy for the fabrication of high-performance flexible thermoelectric composite films, which can be extended to other inorganic/organic composites and will certainly promote their development and thermoelectric applications.

Keywords: nanowire; poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiopene)-poly(4-styrenesulfonate); silver selenide; thermoelectric.