Barium Titanate Film Interfaces for Hybrid Composite Energy Harvesters

Abstract

Energy harvesting utilizing piezoelectric materials has become an attractive approach for converting mechanical energy into electrical power for low-power electronics. Structural composites are ideally suited for energy scavenging due to the large amount of mechanical energy they are subjected to. Here, a multifunctional composite with embedded sensing and energy harvesting is developed by integrating an active interface into carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites. By modifying the composite matrix, both rigid and flexible multifunctional composites are fabricated. Through electromechanical testing of a cantilever beam of the rigid composite, it reveals a power density of 217 pW/cc from only 1 g root-mean-square acceleration when excited at its resonant frequency of 47 Hz. Electromechanical sensor testing of the flexible multifunctional composite reveals an average voltage generation of 23.5 mV/g at its resonant frequency of 96 Hz. This research introduces a route for integrating nonstructural functionality into structural fiber composites by utilizing BaTiO coated woven carbon fiber fabrics with power scavenging and passive sensing capabilities.

Piezoelectric Polyacrylonitrile Nanofiber Film-Based Dual-Function Self-Powered Flexible Sensor

“…It was worth noting that O existed not only in BTO NPs, but also in the carbonized nanofiber, which was caused by the oxidation of carbon fiber in the air at 240 o C. planes of crystalline BTO, identical to free BTO NPs. [29][30][31][32] It is noteworthy that the peak splitting at 45 o for (200) and (002) planes indicated that the BTO NPs had a tetragonal phase with piezoelectric effect (Figure 1j). [33][34] PAN-C nanofibers (carbonized PAN nanofibers without BTO NPs) and PAN-C/BTO nanofibers showed similar Raman spectrum patterns with peaks at 1360 cm -1 (defects or heteroatom doping (D-band)), and 1580 cm -1 (crystalline sp2 carbon (G-band)) ( Figure 1K).…”

A Review on Piezoelectric, Magnetostrictive, and Magnetoelectric Materials and Device Technologies for Energy Harvesting Applications

“…Bowland et al [119] studied the synthesis of BaTiO 3 textured films on carbon fiber fabrics and their integration into a carbon fiber composite with power generation and sensing capabilities. The flexible composite showed an electrical output of 23.5 mV g À1 when excited at its resonant frequency of 96 Hz, and it had a power density of 0.217 nW cm À3 from only 1 g rms acceleration.…”

BaTiO3–Epoxy–ZnO-Based Multifunctional Composites: Variation in Electron Transport Properties due to the Interaction of ZnO Nanoparticles with the Composite Microstructure

“…Piezoelectric materials are a class of smart materials that researchers can use to convert mechanical inputs into electrical outputs, or vice versa [10]. They are used in a variety of applications such as actuating, sensing, charging batteries, powering nanodevices, vibrational damping, structural health monitoring, and energy harvesting [5,7,8,[11][12][13][14], and they can also be used as capacitors, inductors, and resonators [13].…”

“…They noted that this was likely due to agglomerations, change in the contact resistance, and excess air voids [6]. These methods are not mutually exclusive, however, and many researchers have chosen to work with composites to implement the advantages of different materials and structures [9,14,26].…”

“…Most piezoelectric materials are ceramics and are, consequently, incapable of handling the high stresses caused by intense vibrations without fracturing [12,14]. One method to overcome this problem is to develop energy harvesting composites that contain a flexible polymer that is capable of withstanding the intense vibrations.…”