Photothermoelectric and Hydrovoltaic Effect Synergistic Multistage Core–Shell Structure Coated Fabrics of Flexible Fabricated Photothermoelectric Panels

In this paper, solar energy can be absorbed by introducing PPy (polypyrrole) as an absorber layer on hydrophilically treated polypropylene nonwoven (PPDA). T organic/inorganic P-type thermoelectric materials PEDOT (poly 3,4 ethylene dioxythiophene) and CuI (cuprous iodide) were subsequently introduced as thermoelectric layers to obtain a multistage core–shell structure of PPDA–PPy-PEDOT/CuI photothermoelectric fabric to harvest thermal and water energy and convert it into electrical energy. The introduction of PPy as an absorber layer can effectively increase the surface temperature of thermoelectric fabrics under light and, with the thermoelectric layer, can form a double energy filtering system to improve the Seebeck coefficient. Finally, the PPDA–PPy-PEDOT/CuI photothermoelectric fabric was assembled to obtain a photothermoelectric panel, which could reach about 6.6 mV when tested under infrared light, and the photothermoelectric panel was tested under a wet condition with infrared light and heat; the photothermoelectric effect in concert with hydrovoltage effect could reach about 110 and 73.94 mV when tested under outdoor sunlight. This study achieves the conversion of thermal and water energy to electrical energy by the synergistic effect of photothermoelectric effect and water voltaic effect, which provides an idea for the sustainable development of green in the wearable field.