Electrospun nanofibers with piezoelectric properties

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary comparison between the piezoelectric behavior of PVdF electrospun nanofibrous membranes and a commercial PVdF film. XRD measurements showed that the β phase of the realized electrospun PVdF membranes is much larger than that of the PVdF film here considered. Consequently, the nanofibrous membranes show a significant increase of the electrical response associated with a mechanical impulsive stress applied to the sample, with respect to that provided by film specimens. In particular, the electric signal per unit weight is much larger for the nanofibrous specimens, i.e. a few orders of magnitude larger than that of commercial flat specimens. This behavior could be of interest, e.g, in the field of impact sensors and energy harvesting.