Photonic Enhanced Flexible Photothermoelectric Generator Using Mxene Coated Fullerenes Modified Pedot:Pss Films for Solar Energy Harvesting

Abstract

Photothermoelectric conversion technology has been proved through the conversation from light and heat into electricity by virtue of photothermal and thermoelectric (TE) effects. Wherein, there are great challenge in the structural design that the cold and hot side distribution in planar structure limits the selection of materials to obtain the high output voltage. Here, the half-vertical heterojunction structure of the photothermoelectric generator (PTEG) is adopted for enhanced performance to realize effective energy utilization. The PTEG is constituted by the MXene half-coated fullerenes-modified PEDOT:PSS to obtain wide spectral response. The output voltage of the prepared PTEG can be stabilized at 2.15 mV under the irradiation of a laser wavelength 808 nm with power of 25 mW. Under simulated sunlight irradiation, with the assistant of fullerenes, the output voltage was improved by 43.83% from 146 to 210 [[EQUATION]]V. Furthermore, the voltage can be enhanced by TE voltage increasement via grade temperature difference strategy, and the value of output voltage was 66.17% from 210 to 349 [[EQUATION]]V. In addition, PTEG also have excellent electrothermal effect, which was applied into detecting whether the battery is fully charged through thermal sensitive materials. By means of half-vertical heterojunction structure to the PTEG, it may provide new choice for the PTEG to make better use of sunlight.

Keywords: PEDOT:PSS, Fullerene, MXene, photothermoelectric, half-vertical heterojunction, Separation