article · Journal of Materials Research and Technology
Flexible piezoelectric membranes can generate electrical energy from motion, making them valuable for wearable technologies. Poly(vinylidene fluoride) offers strong piezoelectric properties, flexibility, stability, and biocompatibility, but industrial adoption requires scalable fabrication methods that preserve these electrical characteristics. By employing solution blow spinning, a technique capable of mass production, nanofibrous membranes were fabricated by blending poly(vinylidene fluoride) with thermoplastic polyurethane. Incorporating thermoplastic polyurethane improved the flexibility, tensile strength, and elasticity of the resulting material. Membranes containing five weight percent of thermoplastic polyurethane demonstrated high piezoelectric response and sensitivity. These performance enhancements were attributed to reduced nanofibre diameters, a high beta phase fraction, and favourable reorientation of electric dipoles, offering an efficient approach to manufacturing durable, elastic energy-harvesting membranes.
Wearable electronics require flexible materials that can harvest electrical power from physical movement while enduring strenuous physical strain. Demonstrating that solution blow spinning can create highly elastic, sensitive piezoelectric membranes addresses both material durability and the need for scalable manufacturing techniques suited to commercial production.
The material is designed for mechanical energy harvesting in wearable devices operated under strenuous conditions. Product designers and manufacturers in the wearable electronics sector could utilise this process, especially given the mass production capability of solution blow spinning. The research represents early-stage materials development and laboratory testing, meaning device-level integration and field trials are still required before commercial readiness.
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Poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) nanofibers have been applied in producing piezoelectric membranes for energy harvesting in wearable devices under strenuous service conditions due to its outstanding properties such as piezoelectricity, flexibility, stability, and biocompatibility. Therefore, a processing technique with mass production capability and generating the highest possible piezoelectric properties of PVDF nanofibers is required. To achieve such requirements, this study presented a novel flexible piezoelectric membrane based on PVDF/TPU nanofibers using solution blow spinning (SBS). The addition of TPU into PVDF has been proven to increase the flexibility of the polymeric membranes. The produced membranes showed high piezoelectric response and sensitivity compared to other PVDF-based membranes in the literature especially at 5wt.% TPU concentration, owing to its small nanofiber diameter, high β fraction, and inducing reorientation of electric dipoles. The addition of TPU also significantly enhanced tensile strength and elasticity of the produced membranes. Based on those, this work has shown a promising method to produce high elastic-piezoelectric nanofibrous membrane using SBS.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.jmrt.2023.04.051
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