Synergy Between Excluded Volume Effect with Co-embedded Microparticles and Chemical Doping in Carbon Nanotube Network-based Composites to Enhance Thermoelectric Power Factor

Abstract

There is a growing momentum in recent thermoelectric materials research for flexible materials which enhance power output and efficiency at human wearable temperatures. In our previous work, we established the method to improve thermoelectric properties with co-embedding microparticles in carbon nanotube (CNT) network-based composites. In this work, we investigate the synergy of excluded volume effect by silica microparticles with CNT doping toward the enhancement of thermoelectric power factor. We find that the power factor can be enhanced to 28.46 {\mu}W/mK2 when the CNT is doped with 0.5 {\mu}g/ml of 1,5,7-triazabicyclo [4.4.0] dec-5-ene (TBD) before co-embedding silica microparticles within the carbon nanotube-based composite. We also fabricated and demonstrated flexible wearable thermoelectric devices made of the developed composites that exhibits a power output of 0.025 {\mu}W/cm2 at a temperature differential of only 4 K.