Materials (Dec 2022)

Advancement of Polyaniline/Carbon Nanotubes Based Thermoelectric Composites

  • Chun Zhang,
  • Hui Li,
  • Yalong Liu,
  • Pengcheng Li,
  • Siqi Liu,
  • Chaobin He

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15238644
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 23
p. 8644

Abstract

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Organic thermoelectric (TE) materials have been widely investigated due to their good stability, easy synthesis, and high electrical conductivity. Among them, polyaniline/carbon nanotubes (PANI/CNTs) composites have attracted significant attention for pursuing enhanced TE properties to meet the demands of commercial applications. In this review, we summarize recent advances in versatile PANI/CNTs composites in terms of the dispersion methods of CNTs (such as the addition of surfactants, mechanical grinding, and CNT functional group modification methods), fabrication engineering (physical blending and in-situ polymerization), post-treatments (solvent treatments to regulate the doping level and microstructure of PANI), and multi-components composites (incorporation of other components to enhance energy filtering effect and Seebeck coefficient), respectively. Various approaches are comprehensively discussed to illustrate the microstructure modulation and conduction mechanism within PANI/CNTs composites. Furthermore, we briefly give an outlook on the challenges of the PANI/CNTs composites for achieving high performance and hope to pave a way for future development of high-performance PANI/CNTs composites for sustainable energy utilization.

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