Reversible bipolar thermopower of ionic thermoelectric polymer composite for cyclic energy generation.

The giant thermopower of ionic thermoelectric materials has attracted great attention for waste-heat recovery technologies. However, generating cyclic power by ionic thermoelectric modules remains challenging, since the ions cannot travel across the electrode interface. Here, we reported a reversible bipolar thermopower (+20.

The cross-interface energy-filtering effect at organic/inorganic interfaces balances the trade-off between thermopower and conductivity.

The energy-filtering effect has been widely employed to elucidate the enhanced thermoelectric properties of organic/inorganic hybrids. However, the traditional Mott criterion cannot identify the energy-filtering effect of organic/inorganic hybrids due to the limitations of the Hall effect measurement in determining their carrier concentration. In this work, a carrier concentration-independent strategy under the theoretical framework of the Kang-Snyder model is proposed and demonstrated using PANI/MWCNT composites.