Optimizing Piezoelectric Coefficient in PVDF Fibers: Key Strategies for Energy Harvesting and Smart Textiles

Abstract

With the advancement in smart electronic devices and self‐powered devices, the demand for piezoelectric polymers has found potential research interest. Among these, electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) fibers have gained attention for energy harvesting due to their flexibility and higher piezoelectric coefficient. In the current work, various methods are compared to enhance PVDF's piezoelectric properties, including different solvents (DMAc, DMF), conductive filler (rGO), and annealing as post‐treatment. The results indicate that PVDF/rGO fibers in DMAc solvent exhibit the highest β phase fraction and crystallinity. Moreover, for the first time, the piezoelectric properties of PVDF/rGO electrospun single fiber is presented using high voltage switching spectroscopy piezoelectric force microscopy (HVSS‐PFM). The highest piezoelectric coefficient (d33) is measured for PVDF/DMAc‐rGO composite fibers. Notably, PVDF/rGO in DMAc solvent significantly improves the piezoelectric coefficient, leading to a remarkable fourfold increase in power density compared to pure PVDF, making it a promising material for energy harvesting applications.

Unraveling the Impact of Boron Nitride and Silicon Nitride Nanoparticles on Thermoplastic Polyurethane Fibers and Mats for Advanced Heat Management

“…This can lead to poor processability, inferior mechanical properties, and increased cost. Therefore, controlling the spatial arrangement and orientation of fillers are key parameters to design composites with high thermal conductivity at lower filler loadings. − Electrospinning offers a versatile and scalable approach for producing composite fibers, meshes, and yarns in a single step. − It enables the addition of fillers in high loading percentages and enhances the filler distribution with controllable orientation along the axial direction of polymer fibers. , Moreover, the synergy of the applied electrical field and fillers’ organization during electrospinning improves the alignment of the polymer molecule chains, thereby augmenting the intrinsic thermal conductivity and Young’s modulus of the polymer matrix. − This enhancement in properties expands their applications in yarns, textiles, aerospace engineering, and biomedical devices. − Therefore, understanding the thermal properties of individual micro- and nanofibers is crucial for optimizing material performance and functionality, especially given the unique characteristics that emerge in low-dimensional nanostructures, such as size and temperature dependence of thermal conductivity, and internal phonon boundary and edge scatterings. , Scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) with excellent spatial resolution (<50 nm) and thermal sensitivity (<0.01 °C) stands out among methods for characterizing thermal properties, including materials’ thermal conductivity at the micro- and nanoscale. In this technique, a heated nanothermal tip contacts and scans the surface of the samples at room temperature, capturing and processing thermal feedback signals to derive local temperature distribution on the samples. − …”