Google Search
A1: Low temperature materials
Thermoelectric (TE) materials have great potential for applications in both power generation and solid state cooling or heating. The TE power generation could be widely used as a special power source and as novel energy harvesting systems, such as waste heat recovery and high efficiency solar energy conversion [1]. Some inorganic conductors and semiconductors, for example bismuth tellurides, are clearly efficient TE materials, but they have drawbacks, such as high cost of production, scarcity of materials and toxicity [2-3]. Compared with inorganic materials, conducting polymers possess unique features for application as TE materials because of their low density, low cost due to rich resources, easy synthesis, and facile processing into versatile form. It is timely and necessary to search for novel TE materials with high performance and low cost and to seek economical ways of manufacturing TE materials. In this contribution, we reported the synthesis and TE performances of four novel π-conjugated polymers, poly(dibenzothiophene) (PDBT), poly(dibenzofuran) (PDBF), poly(2,8-di-2,3-dihydrothieno[3,4-b][1,4]dioxin-5-yl-dibenzothiophene) (PDBT-DEDOT), and poly(2,8-di-2,3-dihydrothieno [3,4-b][1,4]dioxin-5-yl-dibenzofuran) (PDBF-DEDOT). The corresponding electrical conductivities were obtained, respectively, which ranged from 10-5 to 10-1 S cm-1 at room temperature. Given that, there is a need to improve the electrical conductivity for this family of polymers, to produce useful thermoelectric materials and lead to practical applications.
