Dehydrated polyvinyl alcohol as novel carbon material filler for poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): Poly (styrene sulfonate) based composites with enhanced thermoelectric behavior

Readily available carbon materials produced from polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) were used as fillers to prepare polymer-inorganic composite films with poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): poly (styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) as stabilizer. Polyacetylene-like aerogel structures with high carbon contents were obtained when PVA was pyrolyzed at 300 °C (PVA-300). PEDOT: PSS interact strongly with PVA-300 due to their conjugated chemistry which benefits π-π overlap. The structural and computational results have proved that a conformationally organized PEDOT: PSS interfacial layer templated by PVA-300 aerogel produces higher conductivity in PEDOT: PSS/PVA (PP) composite films than that in pure PEDOT: PSS. The charge transfer process also promotes carrier transport of the electrically conductive network of PP composites. These special characteristics lead to the optimal power factor of 259.56 μ W m−1 K−2 and ZT value of 0.49 at 300 K in PP composite with 25 wt% PVA-300. A flexible thermoelectric generator (TEG) with 14 thermoelectric p-type PP units is demonstrated, which gives an output voltage of 146 mV at ΔT = 70 °C.