▎ 摘　　要

Although the PEDOT:PSS/graphene (PP/GR) thermoelectric (TE) system has a high electrical conductivity (sigma), it faces great issues regarding its high thermal conductivity (k) and its relatively low Seebeck coefficient (S) which restrict its TE applications. Therefore, a new composite of PEDOT:PSS and copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticle decorated nitrogen doped graphene (PP/(CuO)NG) has been introduced in this work with a good anisotropic TE performance in order to solve these limitations. Doping of graphene with nitrogen plays a dual role in improving the Seebeck coefficient (S) by creating interfacial energy barriers and decreasing the k value by scattering the phonons. Besides, the adornment of CuO on the NG surface reduces the stacking nature of NG layers and hence decreasing the k value. Moreover, the ferro-magnetic performance of CuO nanoparticles provides a high spin Seebeck coefficient which improves the S value of the composite systems. For CuO < 20 wt%, an increasing trend in anisotropic TE functions is obtained, whereas a great drop in anisotropic TE functions is observed at R.T for CuO > 20 wt%. Interestingly, the anisotropic TE functions are significantly improved by the CuO addition, with the anisotropic power factors PF of the composite with 20 wt% CuO (PF|| similar to 180.62 +/- 3 mu W m(-1) K-2 and PF perpendicular to similar to 106.52 +/- 4 mu W m(-1) K-2) showing a similar to 550% improvement over PP/GR (PF|| similar to 32.35 +/- 2 mu W m(-1) K-2, PF perpendicular to similar to (1)8(.2)3 +/- 3 mu W m(-1) K-2). Furthermore, the composite displays k(||) similar to 0.31 +/- 0.045 W m(-1) K-1 and k(perpendicular to) similar to 0.27 +/- 0.060 W m(-1) K-1 at RT for 20 wt% CuO which is >2.8 times smaller than that of PP/GR (k(||) similar to 0.87 +/- 0.04 W m(-1) K-1 and k(perpendicular to) similar to 0.606 +/- 0.07 W m(-1) K-1). Accordingly, the optimized film displays a large anisotropic figure of merit zT (zT(||) similar to 0.175 +/- 0.004 and zT(perpendicular to) similar to 0.118 +/- 0.003) at R.T, which is >13 times larger than that of PP/GR (zT(||) similar to 0.011 +/- 0.003 and zT(perpendicular to) similar to 0.009 +/- 0.005). This study presents simple, safe, economic, and effective TE composites with promising TE performance which can be potentially applied in TE generators, temperature sensors and spintronics.