Polypyrrole nanotube film for flexible thermoelectric application

• Two flexible free-standing polypyrrole (PPy) nanotube films were prepared by using template method.
• In this paper, for the first time, we fabricated free-standing PPy nanotube-based films for thermoelectric (TE) applications.
• The ZT value of free-standing PPy nanotube film is 5.71 × 10−4 at 310 K and ZTmax is 7.84 × 10−4 at 370 K.

Flexible and lightweight organic thermoelectric (TE) devices have potential applications in self-powered health monitoring for humans and wearable self-powered gas/chemical detection. Two flexible and free-standing polypyrrole (PPy) nanotube films (PPy-1 and PPy-2) have been fabricated and the structures, morphologies and thermoelectric properties of the as-prepared PPy films have been carefully investigated. Our results show that the smaller size and longer length of PPy nanotubes are helpful to enhance the electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient while size and length have less effect on thermal conductivity.

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