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    Thermoelectric Performance of Polypropylene/Carbon Nanotube/Ionic Liquid Composites and Its Dependence on Electron Beam Irradiation
    (Basel : MDPI, 2022-1-11) Voigt, Oliver; Krause, Beate; Pötschke, Petra; Müller, Michael T.; Wießner, Sven
    The thermoelectric behavior of polypropylene (PP) based nanocomposites containing single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and five kinds of ionic liquids (Ils) dependent on composite composition and electron beam irradiation (EB) was studied. Therefore, several samples were melt-mixed in a micro compounder, while five Ils with sufficiently different anions and/or cations were incorporated into the PP/SWCNT composites followed by an EB treatment for selected composites. Extensive investigations were carried out considering the electrical, thermal, mechanical, rheological, morphological and, most significantly, thermoelectric properties. It was found that it is possible to prepare n-type melt-mixed polymer composites from p-type commercial SWCNTs with relatively high Seebeck coefficients when adding four of the selected Ils. The highest Seebeck coefficients achieved in this study were +49.3 µV/K (PP/2 wt.% SWCNT) for p-type composites and −27.6 µV/K (PP/2 wt.% SWCNT/4 wt.% IL type AMIM Cl) for n-type composites. Generally, the type of IL is decisive whether p-or n-type thermoelectric behavior is achieved. After IL addition higher volume conductivity could be reached. Electron beam treatment of PP/SWCNT leads to increased values of the Seebeck coefficient, whereas the EB treated sample with IL (AMIM Cl) shows a less negative Seebeck coefficient value.
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    Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Nanotube/Polypropylene Composites with Negative Seebeck Coefficient
    (Basel : MDPI, 2020) Krause, Beate; Konidakis, Ioannis; Arjmand, Mohammad; Sundararaj, Uttandaraman; Fuge, Robert; Liebscher, Marco; Hampel, Silke; Klaus, Maxim; Serpetzoglou, Efthymis; Stratakis, Emmanuel; Pötschke, Petra
    This study describes the application of multi-walled carbon nanotubes that were nitrogen-doped during their synthesis (N-MWCNTs) in melt-mixed polypropylene (PP) composites. Different types of N-MWCNTs, synthesized using different methods, were used and compared. Four of the five MWCNT grades showed negative Seebeck coefficients (S), indicating n-type charge carrier behavior. All prepared composites (with a concentration between 2 and 7.5 wt% N-MWCNTs) also showed negative S values, which in most cases had a higher negative value than the corresponding nanotubes. The S values achieved were between 1.0 µV/K and −13.8 µV/K for the N-MWCNT buckypapers or powders and between −4.7 µV/K and −22.8 µV/K for the corresponding composites. With a higher content of N-MWCNTs, the increase in electrical conductivity led to increasing values of the power factor (PF) despite the unstable behavior of the Seebeck coefficient. The highest power factor was achieved with 4 wt% N-MWCNT, where a suitable combination of high electrical conductivity and acceptable Seebeck coefficient led to a PF value of 6.1 × 10−3 µW/(m·K2). First experiments have shown that transient absorption spectroscopy (TAS) is a useful tool to study the carrier transfer process in CNTs in composites and to correlate it with the Seebeck coefficient.
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    Nanocomposites with p-and n-type conductivity controlled by type and content of nanotubes in thermosets for thermoelectric applications
    (Basel : MDPI, 2020) Kröning, Katharina; Krause, Beate; Pötschke, Petra; Fiedler, Bodo
    In this work, composites based on epoxy resin and various carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were studied regarding their thermoelectric properties. The epoxy composites were prepared by infiltration of preformed CNT buckypapers. The influence of different types of CNTs on the Seebeck coefficient was investigated, namely lab-made and commercially available multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), lab-made nitrogen doped MWCNTs (N-MWCNT) and commercially available single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). It was found that only by varying the lab-made MWCNT content could both n-and p-type composites be produced with Seebeck coefficients between -9.5 and 3.1 µV/K. The incorporation of N-MWCNTs resulted in negative Seebeck coefficients of -11.4 to -17.4 µV/K. Thus, the Seebeck coefficient of pure SWCNT changed from 37.4 to -25.5 µV/K in the epoxy/1 wt. % SWCNT composite. A possible explanation for the shift in the Seebeck coefficient is the change of the CNTs Fermi level depending on the number of epoxy molecules on the CNT surface. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
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    Boron doping of SWCNTs as a way to enhance the thermoelectric properties of melt‐mixed polypropylene/SWCNT composites
    (Basel : MDPI, 2020) Krause, Beate; Bezugly, Viktor; Khavrus, Vyacheslav; Ye, Liu; Cuniberti, Gianaurelio; Pötschke, Petra
    Composites based on the matrix polymer polypropylene (PP) filled with single‐walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and boron‐doped SWCNTs (B‐SWCNTs) were prepared by melt‐mixing to analyze the influence of boron doping of SWCNTs on the thermoelectric properties of these nanocomposites. It was found that besides a significantly higher Seebeck coefficient of B‐SWCNT films and powder packages, the values for B‐SWCNT incorporated in PP were higher than those for SWCNTs. Due to the higher electrical conductivity and the higher Seebeck coefficients of B‐SWCNTs, the power factor (PF) and the figure of merit (ZT) were also higher for the PP/B‐SWCNT composites. The highest value achieved in this study was a Seebeck coefficient of 59.7 μV/K for PP with 0.5 wt% B‐SWCNT compared to 47.9 μV/K for SWCNTs at the same filling level. The highest PF was 0.78 μW/(m∙K2) for PP with 7.5 wt% B‐SWCNT. SWCNT macro‐ and microdispersions were found to be similar in both composite types, as was the very low electrical percolation threshold between 0.075 and 0.1 wt% SWCNT. At loadings between 0.5 and 2.0 wt%, B‐SWCNT‐based composites have one order of magnitude higher electrical conductivity than those based on SWCNT. The crystallization behavior of PP is more strongly influenced by B‐SWCNTs since their composites have higher crystallization temperatures than composites with SWCNTs at a comparable degree of crystallinity. Boron doping of SWCNTs is therefore a suitable way to improve the electrical and thermoelectric properties of composites. © 2020 by the authors.