Flexible Molybdenum Disulfide/Carbon Nanotube Composite Films for Thermoelectric Applications

Earth-abundant molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) shows a high application potential in thermoelectric (TE) field owing to its high Seebeck coefficient. However, the main obstacle to achieve high TE performance for the MoS2 material is its poor electrical conductivity. In this work, the flexible MoS2/single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) films with enhanced TE performance were fabricated via hydrothermal reaction, solution mixing, and subsequent vacuum filtration. The strong S-pi interaction and the energy filtering effect at the MoS2/SWCNT interface produced an impressive power factor value of 107.99 +/- 4.98 mu W<middle dot>m(-1)<middle dot>K-2 for the MoS2/SWCNT composite films. In addition, the TE performance had high stability on bending deformation. Finally, at a temperature difference of 50 K, the assembled TE device of MoS2/SWCNT films exhibited good output performance. This work provides a feasible reference to optimize the TE performance of MoS2 materials and demonstrates a high potential of flexible MoS2-based composites in TE applications.