Enhancing Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity of polyaniline/carbon nanotube–coated thermoelectric fabric

In this work, flexible thermoelectric fabrics, polyester/yarn fabrics coated with polyaniline/carbon nanotube (PANI/CNT) nanocomposite, were fabricated by sequential processing: (I) polyaniline/carbon nanotube nanocomposites preparation by a one-step in-situ polymerization and (II) dip coating of a mixture solution of CNT-doped PANI on a polyester/yarn fabric. Nanocomposites were synthesized with various CNT content (0.5, 2.5, 5, and 10 wt%) and characterized using different methods. The Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity measurements were used to determine their thermoelectric properties. The results revealed significant improvement in both electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient with the addition of CNT. The electrical conductivity increased from 0.011 to 0.1345 S/cm with the increment of CNT from 0.5 to 10 wt%. The highest Seebeck coefficient of 11.4 μV/K was observed for the sample containing 5 wt% CNT at 338 K where the maximum power factor of 1.598×10 ⁻³ μWm ⁻¹ K ⁻² was obtained for the fabric coated with nanocomposite containing 10 wt% CNT.