Extract nano cellulose from flax as thermoelectric enhancement material

Abstract

Cellulose nanofiber (CNF) is a natural nanomaterial extracted from nature. Because of its inherent low thermal conductivity, CNF is considered to be an ideal and environmentally friendly substrate for the construction of flexible thermoelectric materials. In this paper, flax cellulose nanofibers (FF-CNF) were extracted from flax by ternary oxidation mediated by TEMPO, and then mixed with graphene and bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) to prepare composite thermoelectric thin films in order to obtain a kind of flexible thermoelectric composites with excellent thermoelectric properties. The results show that the prepared graphene/FF-CNF/Bi2Te3 composite film has good thermoelectric properties, and the maximum power factor can reach 6.4 × 10-2 µW/mK2. The LED lamp is lit at 70k temperature difference, which opens the way for flexible environment-friendly thermoelectric materials.