Recent advances in diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) based next-generation thermoelectric materials: an overview

The imminent global energy crisis and the growing global demand for electricity, which require the development of alternative energy conversion technologies such as organic thermoelectrics, have attracted much attention from the scientific community due to their capability to convert low-grade waste heat into electrical energy. In the last decades, p-type and n-type thermoelectric polymers have been studied extensively and have achieved significant progress in thermoelectrics. In particular, diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based thermoelectric materials have gained much attention from researchers due to their unique structural properties. This review discusses potential of DPP-based thermoelectric materials and explores recent progress on DPP-based p-type and n-type (which are relatively underexplored) thermoelectric polymers in detail, which involved the structure-property relationship, doping strategies, morphology control, and the impact of molecular design, including noncovalent interactions, backbone engineering, and dopant-polymer compatibility on thermoelectric performance of DPP-based materials and new strategies that will empower the rational design of next-generation polymeric materials for thermoelectric applications.