The reporter learned from the Chinese Academy of Sciences that China's scientific research team has successfully developed a high-performance plastic based thermoelectric material. The material is light and soft, and can also use thermoelectric power generation. It has important application prospects in wearable energy devices and other fields. The research was jointly completed by the team of the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the team of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and its collaborators, and the relevant results were published in the international academic journal Nature on the 24th. Many conductive polymers can be used as thermoelectric materials, and when a temperature difference is applied to this material, an electromotive force is generated at both ends of the material; When a conductive circuit is constructed at both ends of this material and a voltage is applied, a temperature difference will also occur at both ends of the material Di Chong'an, the corresponding author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced the article. Based on these phenomena, people can use lightweight and soft plastics to achieve thermoelectric power generation, develop attached and wearable energy devices, and clothing that can control temperature Di Zhong'an said that the implementation of these functions requires the development of high-performance polymer thermoelectric materials. However, the core performance indicators of existing polymers, such as thermoelectric optimal value, have remained around 0.5, which cannot meet these application requirements. In this study, the team proposed and constructed polymer multi period heterojunction (PMHJ) thermoelectric materials. The test results show that the thermoelectric figure of merit of the material reaches 1.28 under specific temperature conditions, exceeding the performance level of commercial materials in the same temperature range. Meanwhile, the team utilized solution method technology to achieve large-area preparation of PMHJ thin films. Industry experts believe that the excellent performance of PMHJ material makes it have important application potential in the research and development of flexible energy supply devices. At the same time, the successful development of PMHJ material also provides a new path for the continuous breakthrough of the performance of plastic based thermoelectric materials. (New Society)