Design and fabrication of low resistance palm-power generator based on flexible thermoelectric composite film

Abstract

Human thermal energy as permanent generation energy source have been widely utilized in thermoelectric (TE) application today, especially for wearable electronics. In this work, an intrinsically flexible palm-power TE generator based on the p-type PEDOT:PSS-based composite films has been designed and fabricated. The combination of inorganic nano-filler and chemical treatment have been proved to be an effective strategy for improving the TE performance of PEDOT:PSS. The maximum power factor of PEDOT:PSS composite with 5% content of (Ca0.85Ag0.15)3Co4O9 was evaluated to be 75.2 μW m−1 K−2 after H2SO4 post-treatment, which was three times higher than that of pure PEDOT:PSS. The resulting film with a good mechanical flexibility still sustained its good TE performance about 96% even after being flexed for 1000 bending cycles. Based on the parallel circuit design, the palm-power TE generator was assembled by the flexible composite films and realized a low internal resistance of 1.1 Ω and an acceptable output power of 36 nW in the palm of hand. This work may open new avenues on the design and fabrication of flexible wearable electronics for energy harvesting.