Fabricate organic thermoelectric modules use modified PCBM and PEDOT:PSS materials

In this paper, we fabricated an organic thermoelectric (TE) device with modified [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS); the device showed good stability in air condition. For n-leg, PCBM were doped with acridine orange base (3,6-bis (dimethylamino)acridine) (AOB) and 1,3-dimethyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-benzoimidazole (N-DMBI). Co-doped PCBM utilizes synergistic effects of AOB and N-DMBI, resulting in excellent electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient values reaching 2 S/cm and -500 mV/K, respectively, at room temperature with dopant molar ratio of 0.11. P-type leg used modified PEDOT:PSS. Based on modified PCBM and PEDOT:PSS materials, we fabricated a TE module device with 48 p-type and n-type thermocouple and tested their output voltage, short current, and power. Output voltage measured ~0.82 V, and generated power reached almost 945 mW with 75 K temperature gradient at 453 K hot-side temperature. These promising results showed potential of modified PEDOT and PCBM as TE materials for application in device optimization.