Review on the recent advance in PEDOT:PSS/Carbonic fillers based nanocomposite for flexible thermoelectric devices and sensors

Currently, the global struggles on energy grounds threaten the human beings via producing the global energy, economic and food shortage crisis, regardless of the nature disappearing of the fossil fuels energy sources. Thermoelectricity (TE) is considered a promising candidate in solving the issue of energy synchronizing with the depletion of fossil fuels, so it has captured the attention of the scientific community in the current era as it can generate electricity from the low-grade heat or ubiquitous heat. The revolution in modern technology increases the development in thermoelectricity by discovering new materials such as inorganic, polymeric and their (polymeric/inorganic) composites. Moreover, the PEDOT:PSS/carbon composites have recently captured great curiosity for their exceptional welfares such as low thermal conductivity, high electrical conductivity, high tensile strength, good flexibility, high durability and tunable structures which make them very suitable for great potential applications in electronics and wearable TE devices. The fast progress in the TE behavior of PEDOT:PSS/carbon materials with the actually obtained devices and sensors makes them not only compete the pioneer TE candidates but they may become dominant in the TE field in the near future. Therefore, this article firstly discusses the reasons that make these materials vital for TE applications and the uniqueness of these composites. Then, this article introduces a systematic summary relevant to the most recent progress in the PEDOT:PSS composites based on different carbonic materials, different composites structure, preparation procedures and strategies for tuning the morphology and structures. Furthermore, composite performances in the term of thermal, electronic, mechanical, and TE improvements thanks to the carbonic filler additive have been also discussed. Also, the recent progress in the state-of-the-art TE devices, sensors and generators is addressed. Regarding the future research opportunities, prospects, some visionary discussion and suggestions for new works in the near future have been presented as well.