Sustainable Nanotextured Wave Energy Harvester Based on Ferroelectric Fatigue‐Free and Flexoelectricity‐Enhanced Piezoelectric P(VDF‐TrFE) Nanofibers with BaSrTiO₃ Nanoparticles

Abstract

Here, ultrathin, flexible, and sustainable nanofiber‐based piezoelectric nanogenerators (NF‐PENGs) are fabricated and applied as wave energy harvesters. The NF‐PENGs are composed of poly(vinylidene fluoride‐co‐trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF‐TrFE)) nanofibers with embedded barium strontium titanate (BaSrTiO3) nanoparticles, which are fabricated by using facile, scalable, and cost‐effective fiber‐forming methods, including electrospinning and solution blowing. The inclusion of ferroelectric BaSrTiO3 nanoparticles inside the electrospun P(VDF‐TrFE) nanofibers enhances the sustainability of the NF‐PENGs and results in unique flexoelectricity‐enhanced piezoelectric nanofibers. Not only do these NF‐PENGs yield a superior performance compared to the previously reported NF‐PENGs, but they also exhibit an outstanding durability in terms of mechanical properties and cyclability. Furthermore, a new theoretical estimate of the energy harvesting efficiency from the water waves is introduced here, which can also be employed in future studies associated with various nanogenerators, including PENGs and triboelectric nanogenerators.

How Nanofibers Carry the Load: Toward a Universal and Reliable Approach for Tensile Testing of Polymeric Nanofibrous Membranes

“…Tensile stress-strain curves of mats with randomly oriented fibers have a peculiar shape, which displays a nonlinear trend followed by a linear one, as largely found in the literature. [20,28,[33][34][35][36]39,40,[47][48][49][50] The tested mats show this behavior too: the stiffness decreases from an initial value down to an asymptotic constant trend for high strains. In particular, the mechanical behavior is characterized by three main stages: an initial nonlinear trend (Stage I), followed by a linear one (Stage II), and finally an additional nonlinear behavior where the stress reaches a maximum value before mat failure (Stage III).…”

“…The knowledge of the thickness measurement conditions (mainly the applied pressure) should help, but usually, this information is missing. [9,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] The underestimation of this aspect, affecting almost all the studies about tensile testing of nanofibers, prevents any reliable comparison. As a consequence, the state-of-the-art on the topic lacks, despite the widespread growth and use of such nanomaterials.…”

High‐Performance Piezo‐Electrocatalytic Sensing of Ascorbic Acid with Nanostructured Wurtzite Zinc Oxide

“…[15,35] To the best of our knowledge, our work represents the first demonstration of piezoelectrically enhanced electrocatalysis of AA. The demonstrated piezo-electrocatalytic process could utilize the otherwise wasted environmental mechanical energy (e.g., wind energy, [36] wave energy, [37] tidal energy, [38] and biomechanical energy [39] ) to boost the electrocatalytic efficiency. The concept of piezo-electrocatalysis can be extended to numerous other catalytic processes of biomedical, [40] pharmaceutical, [41] and agricultural interest.…”

Lead-Free Bi3.15Nd0.85Ti3O12 Nanoplates Filler-Elastomeric Polymer Composite Films for Flexible Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

“…The flexible PEHs (f-PEHs) fabricated with composites of inorganic piezoelectric nanostructures dispersed in polymer matrix exhibit high electrical output and high flexibility [16][17][18]. Various piezoelectric nanostructures, such as nanoparticles [19][20][21][22], nanowires [23][24][25][26] nanoflowers [27], nanofibers [28], and nanocubes [29] etc., have been used as fillers to disperse into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) [30] or polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymers [31], etc. It has also been found that the morphology of the fillers has an important influence on the output performance of the f-PEHs [22,29,[32][33][34], because the high dimensional piezoelectric fillers enhance the continuity of fillers and also the transferring efficiency of stress from the matrix to the active inclusions [27], which thus improves the output performance of the PEHs [19].…”

“…Various piezoelectric nanostructures, such as nanoparticles [19][20][21][22], nanowires [23][24][25][26] nanoflowers [27], nanofibers [28], and nanocubes [29] etc., have been used as fillers to disperse into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) [30] or polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymers [31], etc. It has also been found that the morphology of the fillers has an important influence on the output performance of the f-PEHs [22,29,[32][33][34], because the high dimensional piezoelectric fillers enhance the continuity of fillers and also the transferring efficiency of stress from the matrix to the active inclusions [27], which thus improves the output performance of the PEHs [19]. Zhang et al [16] reported in a groundbreaking work that a voltage of 65 V and a current of 75 nA were obtained by filling PDMS composite material with interconnected PZT foam.…”