High Thermoelectric Performance and Flexibility in Rationally Treated PEDOT:PSS Fiber Bundles
Ting Wu, Xiao‐Lei Shi, Wei‐Di Liu, Meng Li, Yue Fang, Huang Pei, Qingfeng Liu, Zhi‐Gang Chen
Abstract
Abstract Organic thermoelectric fibers have great potential as wearable thermoelectric textiles because of their one-dimensional structure and high flexibility. However, the insufficient thermoelectric performance, high fabrication cost, and mechanical fragility of most organic thermoelectric fibers significantly limit their practical applications. Here, we employ a rapid and cost-effective wet-spinning method to prepare dimethyl sulfoxide-doped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) fiber bundles, followed by rational post-treatment with concentrated sulfuric acid (98% H 2 SO 4 ) to enhance their thermoelectric performance. The wearable fiber bundles composed of multiple individual PEDOT:PSS fibers have effectively reduced resistance and overall high tensile strength and stability. Rational treatment with H 2 SO 4 partially removes excessive PSS, thereby increasing the electrical conductivity to 4464 S cm ‒1 , while the parallel bundle is also a major factor in improving the power factor of up to 80.8 μW m ‒1 K ‒2 , which is super-competitive compared with those of currently published studies. Besides, the thermoelectric device based on these fiber bundles exhibits high flexibility and promising output power of 2.25 nW at a temperature difference of 25 K. Our work provides insights into the fabrication of all-organic flexible high-conductivity textiles with high thermoelectric properties. Graphical Abstract