Structure Evolution and Thermoelectric Properties of Carbonized Polydopamine Thin Films

Haoqi Li, Yaroslav V. Aulin, Laszlo Frazer, Eric Borguet, Rohit Kakodkar, Joseph Feser, Yan Chen, Ke An, Dmitriy A. Dikin, Fei Ren

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Abstract

Carbonization of nature-inspired polydopamine can yield thin films with high electrical conductivity. Understanding of the structure of carbonized PDA (cPDA) is therefore highly desired. In this study, neutron diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and other techniques indicate that cPDA samples are mainly amorphous with some short-range ordering and graphite-like structure that emerges with increasing heat treatment temperature. The electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient show different trends with heat treatment temperature, while the thermal conductivity remains insensitive. The largest room-temperature ZT of 2 × 10-4 was obtained on samples heat-treated at 800 °C, which is higher than that of reduced graphene oxide.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6655-6660
Number of pages6
JournalACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Volume9
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • polydopamine
  • thermoelectric
  • neutron total scattering
  • Raman spectroscopy
  • thermal conductivity
  • seebeck coefficient

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