Development of highly flexible PVDF-TiO2 nanocomposites for piezoelectric nanogenerator applications

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) thin films have a wide prospect in energy harvesting applications due to flexible design and presence of electroactive phase. Despite massive work in this domain, commercial applications are very rare since PVDF based thin films have low piezoresponse. In this paper, the piezoelectric output voltage of the PVDF films is further enhanced by loading Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanofillers into the viscous PVDF solution using solvent casting approach. Tensile strength, elastic modulus, and storage modulus of PVDF-TiO2 nanocomposite films showed significant enhancement compared to pure PVDF. PVDF-TiO2 films showed about 143% increment in dielectric constant (ε) and 214% increment in AC conductivity (σac) than pure PVDF. PVDF-TiO2 films showed significant increment in remnant polarization (Pr) values which is indicating enhanced piezoelectric performance. The piezoelectric output voltage of TiO2 reinforced nanocomposite films also showed significant improvement.