Energy harvesting performance of piezoelectric electrospun polymer fibers and polymer/ceramic composites

• Electrospun fibers of PVDF (PVDF-TrFE) and composites with BaTiO3 have been prepared.
• The influence of the processing parameters on fiber size and distribution is determined.
• The energy harvesting of the fibers has been evaluated.
• Power outputs up to 25 μW have been obtained.
• The obtained values are among the largest found in the literature.

The energy harvesting efficiency of electrospun poly(vinylidene fluoride), its copolymer vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene and composites of the later with barium titanate ceramic fillers on interdigitated electrodes has been investigated. Ceramic fillers of 500 (tetragonal), 100 (cubic) and 10 nm (cubic) have been used. Further, a study of the influence of the electrospinning processing parameters on the average size of the composites fibers has been performed. It is found that the best energy harvesting performance was obtained for pure poly(vinylidene fluoride) fibers, with power outputs up to 0.02 μW and 25 μW under low and high mechanical deformation. The copolymer and the composites show reduced power output mainly due to increased mechanical stiffness, the power output of the composites being better for the nonpiezoelectic smaller fillers. The obtained values, among the largest found in the literature, the easy processing and the low cost and robustness of the polymer, demonstrate the applicability of the developed system.

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