Photothermoelectric fabric devices based on poly-3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene nanowires with composite nanophase boundary structures for solar energy and water vapor harvesting

At present, the thermoelectric eutectic tuning of thermoelectric materials remains a great challenge, so in this paper, polydopamine (PDA) was deposited on polypropylene (PP) to build up the gradient structure before spraying poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) nanowires (PEDOT nw), and then low-temperature interfacial polymerization technique was carried out to deposit PEDOT again to obtain the nano-phase-boundary-structured photothermoelectric fabrics. The presence of an energy filtration system at the interface of the two phases enhances the Seebeck coefficient, and hence the power factor, of the organic conducting polymer PEDOT. Subsequently, a photothermoelectric fabric (PA-PEDOT nw-Ty) has been obtained by introducing (polypyrrole) PPy as a photothermal layer, and finally a wet and dry photothermoelectric fabric device prepared by assembling with silver-functionalized polypropylene fabric (PP-Ag). The photothermoelectric fabric device can output 4.5 mV under 500 W of sunlight in the dry state, while the wet state photothermoelectric fabric device not only outputs 65.4 mV, but also evaporates 4 g of water within 1 h. Therefore, this study not only realizes the continuous conversion of photothermal to thermoelectric power, but also solar energy harvesting and solar vapor evaporation, which is a key step towards smart wearable products.

Automated summary

In this study, a nano-phase-boundary-structured photothermoelectric fabric is obtained using a gradient structure and low-temperature interfacial polymerization technique. The fabric shows continuous conversion of photothermal to thermoelectric power and has the ability to harvest solar energy and facilitate solar vapor evaporation.