Lead-free piezoelectric materials have grown in importance through increased environmental concern and subsequent EU and worldwide legislation, with the aspiration to reduce the use of Pbbased materials in all sectors. Integration of the next generation of lead-free piezoelectric materials with substrates to form functional micro devices has received less attention. Low temperature synthesis methods for K 0.5 Na 0.5 NbO 3 powder were developed to overcome the issue of poor purity of the final product during high temperature sintering. Molten hydroxide synthesis (MHS), derived from molten salt synthesis (MSS), has been developed to overcome a Na ion preference in the molten salt synthesis reaction that leads to NaNbO 3 production instead of K 0.5 Na 0.5 NbO 3 when stoichiometric amounts of precursors are used. MHS makes use of a KOH molten reaction aid in place of the NaCl/KCl molten salt mix of the MSS. In a two stage reaction K rich intermediate niobates are produced and subsequent reactions with Na species produce KNN.

Piezoelectric fibers are widely used in composites for actuator and sensor applications due to its ability to convert electrical pulses into mechanical vibrations and transform the returned mechanical vibrations back into electrical signal. They are beneficial for the fabrication of composites especially 1–3 composites, active fiber composites (unidirectional axially aligned PZT fibers sandwiched between interdigitated electrodes and embedded in a polymer matrix) etc, with potential applications in medical imaging, structural health monitoring, energy harvesting, vibration and noise control. However, due to the brittle nature of PZT fibers, maximum strain is limited to 0.2% and cannot be integrated into flexible sensor applications. In this contribution, a new approach to develop flexible ferroelectric hybrid fibers for soft body shape sensing is investigated. Piezoelectric particles incorporated in a polymer matrix and extruded as fiber, 0–3 composite in fibrous form is studied. Commercially obtained calcined PZT and calcined BaTiO3 powders were used in the unsintered form to obtain flexible soft condensed matter ferroelectric hybrid fibers. The extruded fibers were subjected to investigation for their electromechanical behavior as a function of electric field. The hybrid fibers reached 10% of the maximum polarization of their sintered counterpart.

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The motivation of this work was to improve the dielectric properties of BaTiO3 (BT) macrofibers by mixing BT nanofibers and commercial BT powder. BT nanofibers were fabricated via electrospinning synthesis. The calcined electrospun nanofibers were chopped and mixed with BT powder and converted in to a thermoplastic feedstock for extrusion of ceramic macrofibers with a diameter of 500 μm. The electromechanical properties of the BaTiO3 macrofibers were investigated by varying calcination temperature of the nanofibers. For both nano and macro fibers, microstructure and phase composition was investigated by SEM and XRD. It could be observed that an increase in calcination temperature of the nanofibers enhanced the final electromechanical properties of the sintered macrofibers. The relative permittivity increased almost twice, the remanent polarisation increased about 4 times and the strain almost increased 10 times with the addition of calcined nanofibers to macrofibers.

B-site substitution in KNN with tantalum results in a higher d33 and dielectric constant. This higher value makes KNNT interesting for lead-free actuator applications. KNNT fibers with diameters of 300 and 500 μm have been extruded and sintered at 1200 °C in a KNNT-enriched atmosphere. Subsequently, the influence of fiber diameter on the microstructure (porosity and grain size) was investigated. The measurements revealed that with decreasing fiber diameter, the porosity increases, whereas the grain size decreases. The influence of these microstructural differences on the piezoelectric properties was evaluated using a novel characterization procedure for single fibers. The larger diameter fibers show an increase in the electromechanical properties measured, i.e., d33, tanδ, Pr, Ec and the free longitudinal fiber displacement, when compared to smaller diameter fibers. The lower alkali losses result in a larger grain size, a higher density during sintering and lead to higher electromechanical properties. OPEN ACCESSActuators 2015, 4 100

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In this work, we describe the electrospinning of (K,Na)NbO3 fibers and the effect of calcination temperature on the final phase composition. The envisaged application is for the fabrication of ferroelectric sensor hybrid materials. A solution of potassium acetate, sodium methoxide, and niobium ethoxide dissolved in methanol, acetylacetone, and acetic acid was mixed with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) dissolved in methanol, producing a viscous solution for electrospinning. Confirmation that the proposed equation on the average diameter of fibers produced from high viscosity solutions was larger than that of a lower viscosity solution was made. A scanning electron microscopy (SEM) study showed the fibers to be cylindrical, smooth with diameters of around 400 nm and an aspect ratio >1000. The electrospun fibers were calcined from 700°C to 1050°C observing the fiber morphology. With increasing calcining temperature, the grain size increased. The calcined (K,Na)NbO3 nanofibers were brittle and generally found to display the “necklace effect.”

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