Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ANTHEM (Advanced Hybrid Thermoelectric Materials through Vapor Phase Infiltration)

Teaser

Waste heat—the rejected by-product of all energy conversion processes—remains a huge and unexplored reservoir of green energy. It is estimated that two-thirds of the energy required for global power consumption is lost to the environment each year. Converting even a...

Summary

Waste heat—the rejected by-product of all energy conversion processes—remains a huge and unexplored reservoir of green energy. It is estimated that two-thirds of the energy required for global power consumption is lost to the environment each year. Converting even a fraction of this wasted energy into electricity would create a booming new industry. A scalable preparative strategy towards inexpensive thermoelectric (TE) materials is needed for heat to electricity conversion to be widely implemented. The ANTHEM project aims to develop a robust strategy towards advanced hybrid organic-inorganic thermoelectric (TE) materials through the novel concept of polymer vapor phase infiltration (VPI) and is motivated by three core objectives:
1) Gain knowledge of VPI precursor-polymer couples.
2) Fine tune inorganic loading and overall composition.
3) Optimize TE properties and long-term stability.

The success this project has great potential to advance not only the field of VPI, but hybrid TE too—creating concrete possibilities for the critically important waste-to-energy industry.

Work performed

During the ANTHEM implementation a custom VPI reaction chamber dedicated to thermoelectric material generation and a home-made Seebeck coefficient measurement system were designed, constructed and implemented at the host institute. Using these tools, the gas phase VPI precursors molybdenum(V) chloride (MoCl5) and diethyzinc (DEZ) were screened for sufficient reactivity and stability within the semiconducting polymer matrix of Poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT) thin films. The films were infiltrated under different conditions such as cycle number, temperature, exposure time and pulsing time to fine tune the inorganic loading and overall composition. The results indicated that MoCl5 is sufficiently reactive and stable within the P3HT polymer and can lead to improved electrical conductivity, while DEZ showed low reactivity and resulted in little change to the electrical and thermal properties of the polymer.

The electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient of the VPI generated MoCl5/P3HT hybrid materials were analyzed using a probe station and a home-made Seebeck coefficient measurement apparatus, respectively. It was found that the electrical and thermal properties of the hybrid materials could be fine-tuned through the number of VPI cycles. The electrical conductivity reached a maximum of 0.017 S/cm at 175 VPI cycles at 70˚C. Under these conditions the Seebeck coefficient measured 140 µV/K. The films were shown to be stable for over 60 days. The results from these studies were submitted to the AVS 19th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD 2019) under the title “Vapor Phase Infiltration as a New Approach in the Fabrication of Advanced Hybrid Thermoelectric Materials”.

Final results

The materials generated in the ANTHEM project show great promise in the field of advanced thermoelectrics due to their low cost, low toxicity and high processability. No work has been done to explore the potential of VPI to generate TE materials. Thus, this work is truly novel and was shown for the first time at CIC nanoGUNE (the host institution for the project) in the framework of ANTHEM.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.nanogune.eu/nanomaterials.