Advances in Flexible Organic Thermoelectrics

Dear Colleagues,

Limited natural sources and the environmental concerns raised by traditional fossil fuels have sparked interest in developing reliable energy sources. Among energy conversion technologies, thermoelectric (TE) materials have attracted tremendous attention due to their ability to recover electrical energy from waste heat anywhere there is a temperature gradient. Conventional inorganic materials, such as Bi₂Te, PbTe, and Skutterudites, have been the main focus in the field of TE devices due to their high performance. However, their inherent limitations such as the high cost of raw materials, scarcity, brittleness, and the difficulty of processing limit widespread commercialization and application. Most inorganics perform best at high temperatures (>500 K), whereas most of the waste heat conversion has temperatures below 400 K. By contrast, organic thermoelectric materials with low cost, easy solution processability, and mechanical flexibility are more suitable for harvesting low-grade heat in a low temperature range (300–400 K). Furthermore, the very low intrinsic thermal conductivity of organic materials provides an effective strategy to improve TE performance. Many research groups have put tremendous effort into creating high-performance organic materials for low-temperature TE applications via controlling chemical doping, polymeric chain conformation, and compounding with carbon nanofillers. These organic TE materials are now becoming competitive with traditional inorganic counterparts. This Special Issue of Materials aims to cover the most recent advances in “flexible organic thermoelectric materials”, concerning not only the performance metrics of organic-based composites but also reports of their preparation and characterization of thermoelectric nanogenerators for producing high-performance next-generation devices.

Prof. Chungyeon Cho
Guest Editor

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• thermoelectricity
• organics
• composites
• multifunctional materials
• thin films
• energy harvesting
• nanomaterials
• carbon nanofillers