Institut Charles Sadron News

How to recover the waste heat, for example that of the human body, to convert it into electricity? This is the goal of thermoelectric (TE) materials, and conductive polymers are good candidates for thermoelectric applications. However, it is difficult to design new conductive polymers with enhanced properties. The SYCOMMOR team has just identified a key link between the chemical structure of polymers and TE properties. The side chains of conjugated polymers, which make it possible to solubilise them in organic solvent, also play an essential role in their doping to improve their thermoelectricity. An optimal side chain length exists, which maximizes the polymer thermoelectric efficiency. With the financial supports by ANR and Idex, this work was published in ACS Appl. Mater. (Effect of Alkyl Side Chain Length on Doping Kinetics, Thermopower, and Charge Transport Properties in Highly Oriented F4TCNQ-Doped PBTTT Films, Vishnu Vijayakumar, Elena Zaborova, Laure Biniek, Huiyan Zeng, Laurent Herrmann, Alain Carvalho, Olivier Boyron, Nicolas Leclerc, Martin Brinkmann).