Coordination polymers for n-type thermoelectric applications

Abstract

Coordination polymers (CPs) are potential thermoelectric (TE) materials to replace the sometimes costly, brittle and toxic heavy metal inorganic TEs for near-ambient-temperature applications. Air-stable and highly conductive p-type thermoelectric CPs are relatively well known, but the their n-type counterparts are only now emerging and both are needed for most practical applications. This perspective reviews recent advances in the development of n-type thermoelectric CPs, particularly the 1D and 2D metal bisdithiolenes, and introduces a relatively new class of guest@metal–organic framework(MOF)-based composites. Low dimensional CPs with reasonable n-type thermoelectric performance are emerging with good charge mobility and air-stability but still relatively low electrical conductivity.