Macroscopic weavable fibers of carbon nanotubes with giant thermoelectric power factor

Abstract

Low-dimensional materials have recently attracted much interest as thermoelectric materials because of their charge carrier confinement leading to thermoelectric performance enhancement. Carbon nanotubes are promising candidates because of their one-dimensionality in addition to their unique advantages such as flexibility and light weight. However, preserving the large power factor of individual carbon nanotubes in macroscopic assemblies has been challenging, primarily due to poor sample morphology and a lack of proper Fermi energy tuning. Here, we report an ultrahigh value of power factor (14 ± 5 mW m−1 K−2) for macroscopic weavable fibers of aligned carbon nanotubes with ultrahigh electrical and thermal conductivity. The observed giant power factor originates from the ultrahigh electrical conductivity achieved through excellent sample morphology, combined with an enhanced Seebeck coefficient through Fermi energy tuning. We fabricate a textile thermoelectric generator based on these carbon nanotube fibers, which demonstrates high thermoelectric performance, weavability, and scalability. The giant power factor we observe make these fibers strong candidates for the emerging field of thermoelectric active cooling, which requires a large thermoelectric power factor and a large thermal conductivity at the same time.

Description
Advisor
Degree
Type
Journal article
Keywords
Citation

Komatsu, Natsumi, Ichinose, Yota, Dewey, Oliver S., et al.. "Macroscopic weavable fibers of carbon nanotubes with giant thermoelectric power factor." Nature Communications, 12, (2021) Springer Nature: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25208-z.

Has part(s)
Forms part of
Rights
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Citable link to this page