Piezoelectric Property Enhancement of PZT/Poly(vinylidenefluoride- co-trifluoroethylene) Hybrid Films for Flexible Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters

Jian-Xun Chen; Jia-Wun Li; Chih-Chia Cheng; Chih-Wei Chiu

doi:10.1021/acsomega.1c05451

Piezoelectric Property Enhancement of PZT/Poly(vinylidenefluoride- co-trifluoroethylene) Hybrid Films for Flexible Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters

ACS Omega. 2021 Dec 22;7(1):793-803. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.1c05451. eCollection 2022 Jan 11.

Authors

Jian-Xun Chen¹, Jia-Wun Li¹, Chih-Chia Cheng², Chih-Wei Chiu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan.
² Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Technology, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan.

Abstract

In this study, lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramic particles were added for further improvement. PZT belongs to the perovskite family and exhibits good piezoelectricity. Thus, it was added in this experiment to enhance the piezoelectric response of the poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (PVDF-TrFE) copolymer, which produced a voltage output of 1.958 V under a cyclic pressure of 290 N. In addition, to further disperse the PZT particles in the PVDF-TrFE matrix, tetradecylphosphonic acid (TDPA) was synthesized and employed to modify the PZT surface, after which the surface-modified PZT (m-PZT) particles were added to the PVDF-TrFE matrix. The TDPA on the PZT surface made it difficult for the particles to aggregate, allowing them to disperse in the polymer solution more stably. In this way, the PZT particles with piezoelectric responses could be uniformly dispersed in the PVDF-TrFE film, thereby further enhancing its overall piezoelectric response. The test results showed that upon the addition of 10 wt % m-PZT, the piezoelectric coefficient of m-PZT/PVDF-TrFE 10 wt % was 27 pC/N; and under a cyclic pressure of 290 N, the output voltage reached 3.426 V, which demonstrated a better piezoelectric response than the polymer film with the original PZT particles. Furthermore, the piezoelectric coefficient of m-PZT/PVDF-TrFE 10 wt % was 27.1 pC/N. This was exhibited by maintaining a piezoelectric coefficient of 26.8 pC/N after 2000 cycles. Overall, a flexible piezoelectric film with a high piezoelectric coefficient was prepared by following a simple fabrication process, which showed that this film possesses great commercial potential.