Scientists in South Korea have made a conducting polymer as part of a thin-film thermoelectric device that can generate electricity from the temperature difference between your fingertips and the environment.
While many kinds of inorganic semiconductors have been studied, organic thermoelectric materials that are flexible and non-toxic have only recently emerged, even though they are easily synthesised, lightweight and cheap. Such materials have the potential to be used in textiles and even turned into clothing that could use wasted body heat as an energy source.
The researchers, led by Eunkyoung Kim from Yonsei University, optimised a polymerisation and electrochemical redox process to create conducting polymers based on poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) with good electrical conductivity and relatively high thermoelectric properties, reporting a power factor of more than 1260 μW m-1 K-2.
Interested to know more? Read the full article in Chemistry World here…
Read the article from EES:
Flexible PEDOT electrodes with large thermoelectric power factors to generate electricity by the touch of fingertips
Teahoon Park, Chihyun Park, Byeonggwan Kim, Haejin Shin and Eunkyoung Kim
DOI: 10.1039/C3EE23729J
