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Girase et al. Energy Mater. 2025, 5, 500132 Energy Materials
DOI: 10.20517/energymater.2025.14

Review Open Access

Recent advances in diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)

based next-generation thermoelectric materials: an
overview

Jaipal Devesing Girase, In-Chan Kim, Yun-Hi Kim *

Department of Chemistry and RIMA, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju 52828, Republic of Korea.
* Correspondence to: Prof. Yun-Hi Kim, Department of Chemistry and RIMA, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju-dero
501, Jinju 52828, Republic of Korea. E-mail: ykim@gnu.ac.kr
How to cite this article: Girase, J. D.; Kim, I. C.; Kim, Y. H. Recent advances in diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) based next-generation
thermoelectric materials: an overview. Energy Mater. 2025, 5, 500132. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/energymater.2025.14
Received: 17 Jan 2025 First Decision: 13 Mar 2025 Revised: 21 Apr 2025 Accepted: 14 May 2025 Published: 2 Jul 2025

Academic Editor: Yuping Wu Copy Editor: Ping Zhang Production Editor: Ping Zhang

Abstract
The imminent global energy crisis and the growing global demand for electricity, which require the development of
alternative energy conversion technologies such as organic thermoelectrics, have attracted much attention from
the scientific community due to their capability to convert low-grade waste heat into electrical energy. In the last
decades, p-type and n-type thermoelectric polymers have been studied extensively and have achieved significant
progress in thermoelectrics. In particular, diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based thermoelectric materials have gained
much attention from researchers due to their unique structural properties. This review discusses potential of
DPP-based thermoelectric materials and explores recent progress on DPP-based p-type and n-type (which are
relatively underexplored) thermoelectric polymers in detail, which involved the structure-property relationship,
doping strategies, morphology control, and the impact of molecular design, including noncovalent interactions,
backbone engineering, and dopant-polymer compatibility on thermoelectric performance of DPP-based materials
and new strategies that will empower the rational design of next-generation polymeric materials for thermoelectric
applications.

Keywords: Thermoelectric materials, diketopyrrolopyrrole, p-type, n-type, organic electronics

INTRODUCTION
The combustion of fossil fuels provides almost 90% of the power generated by heat engines globally.

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