No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

A self-powered system is very much essential aspect in the recent trend to improve the working efficiency of the portable and wearable devices. Here, we have reported a fully sustainable, self-poled, bio-compatible, and bio-waste based piezoelectric energy harvester which has been made of Pomelo Fruit Membrane (PFM). PFM based piezoelectric generator (PFMBPEG) could generate ~ 6.4 V output voltage and ~ 7.44 μA output current directly, only by finger tapping on the device and registers a power density of ~ 12 μW cm−2 whereas, the same piezoelectric generator can generate ~ 15 V output voltage, 130 μA output current, and power density of ~ 487.5 μW cm−2 by using a full wave rectifier. The sensitivity and energy harvesting competence of the generator have also been assessed by attaching this nanogenerator into various parts of human body (as energy sources) such as wrist, elbow, finger, throat, jaws, leg and putting the device into ultrasonic bath and in every case, it could successfully generate voltage. Therefore, this bio-waste based energy harvester can be used as a power source for the different potable and wearable electronic goods where a small amount of energy is required, specifically in the biomedical applications (i.e., health monitoring, power source for the implantable devices and so on). Finally, mechanical stability the developed piezoelectric generator has been evaluated by cyclic bending test and it has been observed that there is no significant deformation of the PFM film even after 100 cycles.

In the recent era, finding renewable energy sources that are environmentally benign the main focus of scientific community around the globe. There is a plenty of renewable energy sources that are currently being researched such as solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients, and kinetic energy. Polymer‐ceramic–based nanocomposite piezoelectric material is known for quite some time for energy harvesting, but the real challenge lies as it requires very high loading of the ceramic part to obtain the required property and thus almost makes the system nonflexible. Developed material needs to be poled later on to use it as an electric energy generator from ambient mechanical movement. This current study is the first time attempt to produce a simple yet unique lightweight energy harvester using polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)/potassium sodium niobate (KNN) nanostructures–based nanocomposite flexible fibrous web where the material is in situ poled during its production using an electrospinning setup. At the beginning, various parameters were identified to synthesize and modulate KNN as nanostructural materials having higher aspect ratio, which is intended to provide a unique connection between KNN once these are embedded within the fibrous matrix. The incorporated KNN nanostructure having higher aspect ratio was also found to act as a beta nucleating agent in PVDF matrix and enhances the β‐phase crystal into the resultant fibrous web, which in turn increases the piezoelectric energy‐harvesting capacity manifold as compared with bare PVDF fibrous web. The in situ alignment of the nanostructured KNN (with a minimum loading, 5% only) into the fibrous nanocomposite is another achievement to obtain higher output. X‐ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared analysis confirmed the mixture of α‐ and β‐crystalline phase of pure PVDF, which gets converted into β phase once KNN nanostructures are incorporated inside the nanofibrous web. An output voltage of 1.9 V was obtained from PVDF/KNN nanocomposite–based web, which is significantly higher (38 times) than generated voltage (50 mV) from the pure PVDF nanoweb without any subsequent poling operation.