Studies on electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride/aromatic hyperbranched polyester (gen-1) blend nanoweb for energy harvesting applications

Abstract In this work, we studied the piezoelectric characteristics of electrospun neat poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and PVDF blended with aromatic hyperbranched polyester of Gen-1 (Ar-HBP-G1, 90/10) blend. Since, the piezoelectric output of PVDF is related to its chain (C–C) and dipole (C-F) orientations, FTIR and XRD were employed to confirm the changes in PVDF crystalline structure as a function of 10 wt-% Ar-HBP-G1 content. FTIR quantitative analysis showed an increase in β-crystalline phase in PVDF/HBP blend in comparison to unmodified PVDF. Further, fabrication of piezoelectric sensors was carried out using electrospun nanoweb samples, and their output voltage signals measured using dynamic pressure custom-made setup under an applied pressure of 1 kgf and frequency of 1.0 Hz. With increasing load i.e. 1 kgf → 3 kgf (under constant frequency of 1 Hz) and decreasing frequency from 1 Hz → 0.1 Hz (under constant load of 1 kgf), Vp-p showed increasing trend for both the samples. Compared to neat PVDF peak-to-peak output voltage (Vp-p) of 0.95 V, PVDF/Ar-HBP-G1 (90/10) showed significant enhancement in Vp-p at 6.42 V, which could play a vital role in preparing a piezoelectric sensor for energy harvesting applications.