Screen-printed bismuth telluride nanostructured composites for flexible thermoelectric applications

Abstract

We herein report the results of a facile two-step surfactant assisted reflux synthesis of bismuth telluride (Bi₂Te₃) nanowires (NWs). The as-synthesised NWs had diameters ranging from 70 to 110 nm with a length varying between 0.4 and 3 µm and a preferential lattice orientation of (0 1 5) as determined by grazing incidence x-ray diffraction. We demonstrate for the first time that a solvent/binder paste formulation of N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone/polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is suitable for screen-printing the Bi₂Te₃ NWs with the potential for the fabrication of flexible thermoelectric (TE) materials. The wt% of PVDF in the composite films was varied from 10% to 20% to identify the optimal composition with a view to achieving maximum film flexibility whilst retaining the best TE performance. The films were screen-printed onto Kapton substrates and subjected to a post-printing annealing process to improve TE performance. The annealed and screen printed Bi₂Te₃/PVDF NW composites yielded a maximum Seebeck coefficient −192 µV K⁻¹ with a power factor of 34 µW m⁻¹K⁻² at 225 K. The flexible screen printed composite films were flexible and found to be intact even after 2000 bending cycles.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Ruomeng Huang: orcid.org/0000-0003-1185-635X

ORCID for Daniel Newbrook: orcid.org/0000-0002-5047-6168

ORCID for Vikesh Sethi: orcid.org/0009-0002-2711-1889

ORCID for Sheng Yong: orcid.org/0000-0002-8588-5981

ORCID for Stephen Beeby: orcid.org/0000-0002-0800-1759

ORCID for Iris S. Nandhakumar: orcid.org/0000-0002-9668-9126

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