{"title":"Thermal stability of piezoelectricity in polylactide polymers and related piezoelectric minimotor application","authors":"Jinxi Zhang, Yonggui Wang, Junyuan Tian, Xiangchen Xu, Weidong Wang, Kailiang Ren","doi":"10.1049/nde2.12038","DOIUrl":"10.1049/nde2.12038","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Piezoelectric polymers have been widely used in a variety of applications, including tactile sensors, energy harvesting, polymer actuators, and biological devices. In this investigation, we fabricated the PLLA (poly(L-lactic Acid)-based bimorph structures for piezoelectric motor applications. First, a strain measurement setup was established to measure the strain of the PLLA and PDLA film at different temperatures. The effective piezoelectric constants <i>d</i><sub>14</sub> calculated for the PLLA and PDLA films were 10.2 pC/N and 9.4 pC/N, respectively. Furthermore, the PLLA films showed a strong thermostability of piezoelectricity at 130°C. The PLLA bimorph minimotor showed the maximum load of 1.2 g and the maximum torque of 0.019 cN·m. The minimotors were capable of rotating a plastic hemisphere container in the clockwise and counterclockwise directions at 65 V voltage. Due to the light weight, low driving voltage, and thermal stability, the PLLA/PDLA motors show a great promise in future Braille display, robots, and mini-digital camera applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":36855,"journal":{"name":"IET Nanodielectrics","volume":"5 3-4","pages":"132-138"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2022-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1049/nde2.12038","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43881955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ferroelectrets: Recent developments","authors":"Xunlin Qiu, Yuqing Bian, Jiawen Liu, Yanxun Xiang, Taotao Ding, Wujun Zhu, Fu-Zhen Xuan","doi":"10.1049/nde2.12036","DOIUrl":"10.1049/nde2.12036","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Ferroelectrets (also called piezoelectrets) are relatively young members in the family of piezo-, pyro- and ferroelectric materials. They exhibit <b>ferro</b>ic behaviour phenomenologically undistinguishable from that of traditional ferroelectrics, although the materials per se are essentially non-polar space-charge <b>electrets</b> with artificial macroscopic dipoles (i.e. internally charged cavities). Since ferroelectrets not only represent a scientific curiosity but also have great application potential, they have attracted tremendous attention from science and industry. The research and development of ferroelectrets has witnessed significant progress in the past few years. New ferroelectrets with large transverse piezoelectric activity, biodegradable ferroelectrets as well as 3-D printed ferroelectrets are reported. Charging methods of high efficiency are proposed based on better understanding of the physico-chemical processes during charging. New insights into the piezoelectricity of ferroelectrets are provided. The development of ferroelectret-based piezoelectric-magnetic multimodal transducer films opens up new avenues for the research of ferroelectrets. Particularly, more and more novel applications of ferroelectrets in flexible pressure sensors, health monitoring, energy harvesting, air-coupled ultrasonic non-destructive testing etc. are reported. Here, these exciting recent advancements in the field of ferroelectret research are reviewed and discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":36855,"journal":{"name":"IET Nanodielectrics","volume":"5 3-4","pages":"113-124"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1049/nde2.12036","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49606123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Preparation and properties of different dielectric films with Al metal electrode","authors":"Qi Dong, Shao-Long Zhong, Qi-Kun Feng, Ming-Sheng Zheng, Jiang-Bo Ping, Zhi-Min Dang","doi":"10.1049/nde2.12037","DOIUrl":"10.1049/nde2.12037","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Al electrodes with different thickness (sheet resistance 2–100 Ω/□) were deposited onto the films of polypropylene (PP), polyester (PET) and polyimide (PI) by vacuum evaporation. The root-mean-square (RMS) and peak-to-valley roughness of Al electrodes were characterised by atomic force microscopy (AFM). It was found that the PET and PI substrates showed the reduced threshold thickness of the continuous growth of Al electrodes compared with the PP substrate. The sheet resistance of Al electrodes decreases with the increase of peak-to-valley roughness. The current surge capability of the Al electrode decreases with the increase of RMS roughness. The Al electrode deposited on the PET film has higher sheet resistance and better current carrying capability, and the self-healing performance of metallised film is also excellent among three kinds of films.</p>","PeriodicalId":36855,"journal":{"name":"IET Nanodielectrics","volume":"5 3-4","pages":"125-131"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1049/nde2.12037","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47406330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sandwich-structured PPy-TiO2/PVDF composite films with outstanding dielectric properties and energy density","authors":"Jinyue Qiu, Ling Weng, Xiaorui Zhang, Yu Su","doi":"10.1049/nde2.12031","DOIUrl":"10.1049/nde2.12031","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Improving the energy storage density of dielectric capacitors has absorbed extensive attention for energy storage. However, a decrease in breakdown strength may be aroused after the addition of abundant fillers, it is necessary to design the composite film with a sandwich structure without the sacrifice of mechanical properties. The PPy-TiO<sub>2</sub>/PVDF monolayer film and PVDF/PPy-TiO<sub>2</sub>/PVDF sandwich-structured composite films were successfully prepared via electrospinning and a hot-press treatment. The experiment results show that the dielectric constant of the composite films can be enhanced effectively by adding PPy-TiO<sub>2</sub>.When the filling amount is 30 wt%, the energy storage density of PVDF/PPy-TiO<sub>2</sub>/PVDF sandwich-structured composite films is outstanding before the breakdown strength, which is higher than that of the pure PVDF film. The energy storage density of PVDF/PPy-TiO<sub>2</sub>/PVDF sandwich-structured composite films could be achieved to 2.68 J/cm<sup>3</sup> under the electric strength of 1700 kV/cm.</p>","PeriodicalId":36855,"journal":{"name":"IET Nanodielectrics","volume":"5 2","pages":"85-92"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1049/nde2.12031","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41413274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fabrication and actuation characterisation of a new UV curing acrylic dielectric elastomer","authors":"Wen-Zhuo Dong, Yu Zhao, Li-Juan Yin, Zhi-Min Dang","doi":"10.1049/nde2.12035","DOIUrl":"10.1049/nde2.12035","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Most commonly used dielectric elastomers (DEs) such as acrylic dielectric elastomers VHB<sup>TM</sup> 4910 need a high actuation voltage and pre-stretching to obtain a large actuation strain, and present high mechanical loss caused by viscoelasticity. In this work, we fabricated a new acrylic elastomer by UV curing based on CN9021 and lauryl acrylate. By manipulating crosslinker content, crosslink density changed and physical entanglements of the new material can be affected. Therefore, mechanical properties such as Young's Modulus and mechanical loss of the new material can be controlled, and little change of its glass transition temperature was induced. Results of the actuation test show that the new DE is capable of 9.0% actuation area strain under 11 kV/mm and a good performance under oscillating voltage with different waveforms and frequencies.</p>","PeriodicalId":36855,"journal":{"name":"IET Nanodielectrics","volume":"5 2","pages":"104-111"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2022-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1049/nde2.12035","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49227032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yu Bai, Yan Wang, Dayuan Qiang, Xin Yuan, Jiehui Wu, Weilong Chen, Sai Zhang, Yanru Zhang, George Chen
{"title":"Identification of nanocomposites agglomerates in scanning electron microscopy images based on semantic segmentation","authors":"Yu Bai, Yan Wang, Dayuan Qiang, Xin Yuan, Jiehui Wu, Weilong Chen, Sai Zhang, Yanru Zhang, George Chen","doi":"10.1049/nde2.12034","DOIUrl":"10.1049/nde2.12034","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The agglomeration causes a significant challenge to nanodielectrics. Identification of agglomerates in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images is an important step of solving this issue. Motivated by the fast development of image recognition in computer vision, we propose a new approach for agglomerates identification in SEM images of nanodielectrics by semantic segmentation, which is more efficient and accurate than traditional methods. Three models based on convolutional neural networks are investigated in this work, namely pixel blocks classification network, full convolutional segmentation network employed with data augmentation and unsupervised self-encoding network. All three networks can preliminarily identify agglomerates of spherical silica-based blend polyethylene nanocomposites. The mean intersection over union (mIoU) of pixel blocks classification network is 0.843 and it takes 25 s to process an image. Full convolutional segmentation network only needs 0.059 s to process a sample, with a mIoU of 0.777. Unsupervised self-encoding network can reach a mIoU of 0.747 at a speed of 5.806 s. According to the amount of data sets, and requirements for different speed and accuracy, three kinds of networks can be flexibly selected.</p>","PeriodicalId":36855,"journal":{"name":"IET Nanodielectrics","volume":"5 2","pages":"93-103"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1049/nde2.12034","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45920131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A review on the research progress and future development of nano-modified cellulose insulation paper","authors":"Chao Tang, Rui Chen, Jinzhu Zhang, Xiao Peng, Binghao Chen, Liusheng Zhang","doi":"10.1049/nde2.12032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1049/nde2.12032","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Focussing on the insulating material of power transformer—cellulose insulation paper, this paper first introduces the basic characteristics and engineering application background of insulation paper. Then, the research progress of improving the mechanical properties, thermal stability and electrical properties of insulation paper by nano modification in recent years is compared, and the promotion mechanism is analysed. In addition, in practical engineering application, the oil–paper composite insulation system composed of insulation paper and insulating oil is used for the internal insulation of oil immersed transformer. Therefore, the influence of modified insulation paper on the performance of oil–paper composite insulation system is analysed. Finally, the newly reported new insulation paper is introduced, and the future development trend of modification of traditional insulation paper is analysed.</p>","PeriodicalId":36855,"journal":{"name":"IET Nanodielectrics","volume":"5 2","pages":"63-84"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2021-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1049/nde2.12032","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"109172525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enhanced electromechanical performance of natural rubber dielectric elastomers achieved by in situ synthesis of silver nanoparticles on TiO2 nanoparticles","authors":"Liyuan Yu, Tingting Hu, Dan Yang, Qungui Wei","doi":"10.1049/nde2.12030","DOIUrl":"10.1049/nde2.12030","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Dielectric elastomers (DEs) could transduce electrical energy to mechanical energy, but their applications are currently limited by the elevated driving voltages. To obtain satisfactory actuated strains at low voltages, titanate oxide@tannic acid-ferric ion@silver (labelled as TiO<sub>2</sub>@TA-Fe<sup>3+</sup>@Ag) satellite-structure nanoparticles were obtained in this study by in situ synthesis followed by incorporating the nanoparticles into natural rubber (NR) to prepare DE composites (denoted as TiO<sub>2</sub>@TA-Fe<sup>3+</sup>@Ag/NR). The presence of surface coating of TA-Fe<sup>3+</sup> and Ag nanoparticles improved the electromechanical performance of TiO<sub>2</sub>@TA-Fe<sup>3+</sup>@Ag/NR composites. Among the samples, 30 wt% TiO<sub>2</sub>@TA-Fe<sup>3+</sup>@Ag/NR composite displayed a relatively high actuated strain of 9.09% at a relatively low electric field of 22.78 kV/mm. In sum, the green, facile, and cost-effective surface modification method looks promising for improving the electromechanical properties of particulate-filled polymer composites.</p>","PeriodicalId":36855,"journal":{"name":"IET Nanodielectrics","volume":"5 1","pages":"39-49"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1049/nde2.12030","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48734028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ming-Xiao Zhu, Ting Deng, Lei Dong, Ji-Ming Chen, Zhi-Min Dang
{"title":"Review of machine learning-driven design of polymer-based dielectrics","authors":"Ming-Xiao Zhu, Ting Deng, Lei Dong, Ji-Ming Chen, Zhi-Min Dang","doi":"10.1049/nde2.12029","DOIUrl":"10.1049/nde2.12029","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Polymer-based dielectrics are extensively applied in various electrical and electronic devices such as capacitors, power transmission cables and microchips, in which a variety of distinct performances such as the dielectric and thermal properties are desired. To fulfil these properties, the emerging machine learning (ML) technique has been used to establish a surrogate model for the structure–property linkage analysis, which provides an effective tool for the rational design of the chemical and morphological structure of polymers/nanocomposites. In this article, the authors reviewed the recent progress in the ML algorithms and their applications in the rational design of polymer-based dielectrics. The main routes for collecting training data including online libraries, experiments and high-throughput computations are first summarized. The fingerprints charactering the microstructures of polymers/nanocomposites are presented, followed by the illustration of ML models to establish a mapping between the fingerprinted input and the target properties. Further, inverse design methods such as evolution searching strategies and generative models are described, which are exploited to accelerate the discovery of new polymer-based dielectrics. Moreover, structure–property linkage analysis techniques such as Pearson correlation calculation, decision-tree-based methods and interpretable neural networks are summarized to identify the key features affecting the target properties. The future development prospects of the ML-driven design method for polymer-based dielectrics are also presented in this review.</p>","PeriodicalId":36855,"journal":{"name":"IET Nanodielectrics","volume":"5 1","pages":"24-38"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2021-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1049/nde2.12029","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42329300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}