Thermal transporting properties of electrically conductive polyaniline films as organic thermoelectric materials

Abstract

Thermal transporting properties of electrically conductive polyaniline films were first investigated in wide range of temperatures above room temperature as organic thermoelectric materials. Thermal conductivities of various protonic acid-doped polyaniline films were measured by combination of a laser flash method and a differential scanning calorimeter in relation with electrical conductivity and a kind of dopant. The thermal conductivities thus measured are in the range of conventional organic polymers, indicating that the doped polyaniline films have extremely low thermal conductivities among electrically conductive materials, and have correlation with neither electrical conductivity, nor a kind of dopant. Consequently the polyaniline film, which shows very high electrical conductivity, has comparable thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) with feasible inorganic thermoelectric materials such as iron silicide.