Thermal energy as an alternative renewable source of electricity can be used in a wide range of applications. Over the past decade, thermoelectric (TE) devices have emerged as potential candidates to convert thermal energy to electrical power. Due to the advantages of using organic TE materials over conventional TE generators, including light weight, low thermal conductivity, cost effectiveness, flexibility, and processability, they have become the subject of universal research in recent years.
Poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate)(PEDOT:PSS) is a promising candidate among other polymers to be used in TE modules due to its unique characteristics. Therefore, the focus on this thesis was to design and develop a thermoelectric energy harvesting module using only PEDOT: PSS as the active component. In addition, in order to test the performance of the module, a test setup was designed and developed particularly for the purpose of this work.
The performance of the TE device was evaluated by examining an induced voltage resulting from establishing a temperature difference across the two sides of the modules. It was observed that by increasing the temperature difference across the module, the generated voltage will also increase linearly reaching a maximum value of 280 μV for a 40 °C temperature difference.
The TE device developed in this work can be used as a power source in a wide range of applications from electronic devices to power supplies for distributed sensor networks in the Internet of Things. However, the main application is wearable medical devices in which the electricity is generated by thermoelectric conversion of body heat
