Authors
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Pötschke, P. ; Krause, B. ; Luo, J.
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Title
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Melt mixed composites of polypropylene with singlewalled carbon nanotubes for thermoelectric applications: Switching from p- to n-type behavior by additive addition
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Date
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23.01.2019
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Number
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53792
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Abstract
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Composites were prepared with polypropylene (PP) as the matrix and singlewalled CNTs (SWCNTs) of the type TUBALL from OCSiAl Ltd. as the conducting component by melt processing in a small-scale twin-screw compounder. In order to switch the typical p-type behavior of such composites from positive Seebeck coefficients (S) into n-type behavior with negative Seebeck coefficients, a non-ionic surfactant polyoxyethylene 20 cetyl ether (Brij58) was used and compared with a PEG additive, which was shown previously to be able to induce such switching. For PP-2 wt% SWCNT composites Brij58 is shown to result in n-type composites. The negative S values (up to -48.2 µV/K) are not as high as in the case of previous results using PEG (-56.6 µV/K). However, due to the more pronounced effect of Brij58 on the electrical conductivity, the achieved power factors are higher and reach a maximum of 0.144 µW/(m·K2) compared to previous 0.078 µW/(m·K2) with PEG. Dispersion improvement depends on the type of SWCNTs obtained by using varied synthesis/treatment conditions. Solution prepared composites of PEG with SWCNTs also have negative S values, indicating the donation of electrons from PEG to the SWCNTs. However, such composites are brittle and not suitable as thermoelectric materials.
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Publisher
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AIP Conference Proceedings
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Wikidata
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Citation
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AIP Conference Proceedings 2055 (2019) 090004 [5pp.]
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DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5084882
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Tags
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