High performance n-type thermoelectric material based on naphthalenediimide radical anions

An ideal organic thermoelectric (TE) material should possess features that would be low-cost, of high performance, easy to process, and non-toxic, but it is rare to find materials that meet these requirements. Naphthalenediimide (NDI), as a common and cheap industrial pigment, displays strong intermolecular inaction and good n-type semiconductor character. However, due to the strong interaction of π-π and hydrogen bond interaction, NDI usually exhibited poor solubility, making it difficult to process in solution. Herein, we demonstrated that the unsubstituted NDI could form a suspension mixed with NDI radical anion state by phenyl lithium doping, which consequently can be used to prepare dense film by drop-casting for TE application. More importantly, by optimizing the doping ratio, the TE film reached electrical conductivity of 0.11 S cm −1 and Seebeck coefficient of −1289 μV K −1 . Eventually, a high power factor up to 18.8 μW m −1  K −2 and ZT value of 0.053 was obtained, which is one of the best TE performance achieved in n-type NDI-based TE materials. This work suggests the simple strategy of utilizing commercially mature molecules to develop organic TE materials with high performance.