Effects of Ionic Liquids on Piezoelectric Properties of Electrospun Poly(L-lactic acid) Nanofiber Membranes

Xiaoxia Gu; Meng Cui; Bin Wang; Guyue Liu; Jing Zhang; Rui Wang; Xiuqin Zhang

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c08789

Effects of Ionic Liquids on Piezoelectric Properties of Electrospun Poly(L-lactic acid) Nanofiber Membranes

ACS Omega. 2024 Jan 20;9(4):4957-4965. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c08789. eCollection 2024 Jan 30.

Authors

Xiaoxia Gu¹, Meng Cui¹, Bin Wang¹, Guyue Liu¹, Jing Zhang¹, Rui Wang¹, Xiuqin Zhang¹

Affiliation

¹ Beijing Key Laboratory of Clothing Materials R&D and Assessment, Beijing Engineering Research Center of Textile Nanofiber, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, Beijing 100029, China.

Abstract

The development of environmentally friendly, degradable piezoelectric materials is of great significance for the environment. Poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) is a promising piezoelectric material as a degradable material. Here, we have introduced a series of ionic liquids (ILs) into PLLA spinning solution, and the PLLA/IL composite nanofiber membranes are prepared by electrospinning method. When the conductivity of the spinning solution is below 400 μS·cm^-1, the addition of ILs, especially [EMIm][PF₆], can significantly improve the morphology and piezoelectric properties of the PLLA/IL composite nanofiber membrane with the output voltage of 2.3 V under the pressure of 5 N, which is 4 times that of the PLLA nanofiber membrane. The improvement of the piezoelectric properties of PLLA/IL nanofiber membrane may be due to the high dipole moment generated by the C=O dipole after the interaction between the O atom in C=O on the PLLA molecular chain and the [EMIm]⁺ cation in the IL. This work has elucidated the effects of ILs on the properties of spinning solution and the piezoelectric properties of PLLA, which can provide a theoretical basis for the selection of the preparation system of piezoelectric polymer and inspire the development of environmentally friendly flexible piezoelectric materials.