Flexible thermoelectric composite films of polypyrrole nanotubes coated paper

Abstract

Flexible thermoelectric composite films of polypyrrole (PPy) nanotubes coated paper were fabricated by an in-situ polymerization procedure using methyl orange as a template and paper as the substrate for the first time. Both the electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient of the polypyrrole nanotubes coated paper composite films have been enhanced (from ~0.048 S/cm to ~0.068 S/cm and from ~5.34 μV/K to ~8.21 μV/K for the average value for three measurements, respectively) as the temperature increased from ~300 K to ~370 K, which lead to the same trend of the power factor. The thermal conductivity of the polypyrrole nanotubes coated composite films was very low (~0.1275W·m - 1·K -1 at ~300 K), and a highest ZT (material's dimensionless figure of merit (S 2 σ T/κ)) value of 3.2 × 10 -7 was obtained at ~370 K.