Preparation and Thermoelectric Properties Study of Bipyridine-Containing Polyfluorene Derivative/SWCNT Composites

Polymer/inorganic thermoelectric composites have witnessed rapid progress in recent years, but most of the studies have focused on the traditional conducting polymers. The limited structures of traditional conducting polymers restrain the development of organic thermoelectric composites. Herein, we report the preparation and thermoelectric properties of a series of composites films based on SWCNTs and bipyridine-containing polyfluorene derivatives. The value of the power factor around 12 μW m^-1 K^-2 was achieved for the composite F8bpy/SWCNTs with a mass ratio of 50/50, and the maximum value of 62.3 μW m^-1 K^-2 was obtained when the mass ratio reached 10/90. Moreover, taking advantage of the bipyridine unit could chelate various kinds of metal ions to form polymer complexes. The enhanced power factor of 87.3 μW m^-1 K^-2 was obtained for composite F8bpy-Ni/SWCNTs with a mass ratio of 50/50. Finally, the thermoelectric properties of the bipyridine-containing polyfluorene derivative/SWCNT composites were conveniently tuned by chelating with different metal ions.