TY - JOUR
T1 - Highly Stretchable and Air-Stable PEDOT:PSS/Ionic Liquid Composites for Efficient Organic Thermoelectrics
AU - Kee, Seyoung
AU - Kim, Hyunho
AU - Paleti, Sri Harish Kumar
AU - El Labban, Abdulrahman
AU - Neophytou, Marios
AU - Emwas, Abdul Hamid
AU - Alshareef, Husam N.
AU - Baran, Derya
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2019/5/14
Y1 - 2019/5/14
N2 - Thermoelectric (TE) generators that are capable of providing sustainable energy conversion under dynamic mechanical stresses have been explored for realizing autonomous wearable electronics. However, finding extremely deformable, efficient, and air-stable TE materials is still a major challenge. Here, we report highly stretchable and efficient organic TE materials from aqueous composites of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and ionic liquids (ILs). In this composite, ILs simultaneously enhance the Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity of PEDOT:PSS (up to 35 μV K -1 and 538 S cm -1 , respectively) by controlling its oxidation level and nanostructure. Moreover, the resulting fibrous structure with IL-assisted soft domains leads to outstanding mechanical deformability and durability, enabling that the PEDOT:PSS/IL films simply coated on elastomeric substrates maintain the TE functionality under tensile strain (ϵ) up to 70% and repetitive stretching cycles with 30% ϵ without severe degradation in TE performance. Furthermore, we also demonstrate the long-term TE stability of PEDOT:PSS/IL composites maintaining >80% of the initial performance after 10 days under ambient conditions. Our finding proves the potential of this novel composite as a stretchable and air-stable organic TE material.
AB - Thermoelectric (TE) generators that are capable of providing sustainable energy conversion under dynamic mechanical stresses have been explored for realizing autonomous wearable electronics. However, finding extremely deformable, efficient, and air-stable TE materials is still a major challenge. Here, we report highly stretchable and efficient organic TE materials from aqueous composites of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and ionic liquids (ILs). In this composite, ILs simultaneously enhance the Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity of PEDOT:PSS (up to 35 μV K -1 and 538 S cm -1 , respectively) by controlling its oxidation level and nanostructure. Moreover, the resulting fibrous structure with IL-assisted soft domains leads to outstanding mechanical deformability and durability, enabling that the PEDOT:PSS/IL films simply coated on elastomeric substrates maintain the TE functionality under tensile strain (ϵ) up to 70% and repetitive stretching cycles with 30% ϵ without severe degradation in TE performance. Furthermore, we also demonstrate the long-term TE stability of PEDOT:PSS/IL composites maintaining >80% of the initial performance after 10 days under ambient conditions. Our finding proves the potential of this novel composite as a stretchable and air-stable organic TE material.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064992072&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acs.chemmater.9b00819
DO - 10.1021/acs.chemmater.9b00819
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85064992072
SN - 0897-4756
VL - 31
SP - 3519
EP - 3526
JO - Chemistry of Materials
JF - Chemistry of Materials
IS - 9
ER -