6PM3-PMN-016 Effect of Addition of Reduction Agent on Thermoelectric Properties of Conducting Polythiophene-Based Materials

Conducting polymers, such as polyaniline, polypyrrole, and polythiophene, have attracted the attention of researchers investigating suitable materials for use in thermoelectric applications involving environmental energy conversion, because conducting polymers are inexpensive, lightweight, and relatively harmless materials. Moreover, conducting polymers have several attractive features for use as thermoelectric materials because of the thermal conductivity much lower than that for inorganic thermoelectric materials as well as the relatively high electrical conductivity. We investigated the thermoelectric properties for poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)(PEDOT):polystyrene sulphonic acid (PSS) films and the effect of addition of tetrakis(dimethylamino)ethylene(TDAE) on thermoelectric properties of PEDOT:PSS films. We found that the dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit ZT of PEDOT:PSS film was enhanced by TDAE addition.