Thermoelectric Properties of Ca3Co4O9/Polyaniline Composites

Ca3Co4O9/polyaniline bulk composites have been successfully fabricated by ball-milling and hot-pressing method. Our results indicate that the Seebeck coefficient can be increased nearly by 400% with adding 15 wt% Ca3Co4O9 to the polyaniline. The thermal conductivity changes slightly with increasing filler content. The highest figure of merit, ZT can reach 5 × 10−4 at 329 K for these bulk composites, which is almost 50 times larger than that of pure polyaniline, suggesting that the polymer-thermoelectric oxide composites are promising candidates for light-weight, low-cost and non-toxic thermoelectric applications.