A critical review on lead-free hybrid materials for next generation piezoelectric energy harvesting and conversion

An experimental model for predicting the piezo and dielectric constant of PVDF-PZT nanocomposite fibers with 0–3 and 1–3 connectivity

For vibration energy harvesting applications, a flexible composite material based on a polyurethane (PU) polymer matrix filled with polycrystalline particles (Na0.535K0.48)0.966 Li0.058 Nb0.9Ta0.1O...

Fabrication and characterization of PU/NKLNT/CFs based lead-free piezoelectric composite for energy harvesting application

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is the most common piezoelectric ceramic and exhibits excellent electromechanical conversion properties. But in order to make it more adaptable for energy harvesting applications, we resort to ceramic/polymer composites because of their excellent and tailorable properties. The advantages of this type of composite are high coupling factors due to PZT, mechanical flexibility (PU) and wide bandwidth. In this work, we studied the mechanical and electrical characteristics of this composite, as well as their behavior as a function of the percentage of PZT (by volume). Forth more, we followed the impact of this parameter on the collected energies, as well as others like frequency and resistance. The harvested power significantly increases with increasing PZT, achieving a power value up to 13.4 and 420 nW for PU/PZT 60% and PU/PZT 70%, respectively. In conclusion, composite piezoelectric films have great potential from an energy density viewpoint and could represent interesting candidates for energy harvesting applications.

Dielectric, piezoelectric and electromechanical optimization properties of polyurethane/lead zirconate titanate composites for mechanical energy harvesting applications

Recent trends in electromechanical conversion using alternative materials, have demonstrated the advantages of using piezoelectric composites for energy generation. There have been several papers on ceramic/polymer composites in which the fillers have high piezoelectric constant. Basically, the energy harvested depends on the proportion of the piezoelectric properties of composite. The fillers size within the composites is also an important criterion of the composites properties. Thus, in this paper 0–3 composites, made of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramic powder and polyurethane (PU) were prepared. Different sizes of ceramic grains were used: grains with average size of 10 μm, size under 80 μm and size under 100 μm. Sizes of the PZT grains was determined according to the homogenization efficiency of the composite. Piezoelectric (piezoelectric coefficient d 33 ) and dielectric properties (dielectric constant) were investigated. They have shown an interesting improvement with the increasing grains size up to 20 pC/N and 100, respectively. In order to understand the composite behavior on the microscopic scale, a simulation was carried out by mean of a finite element method (FEM) software. Finally, an estimation of the harvested voltage was modeled according to the grains size.

Y. Boughaleb

Papers

Effect of fillers size on the dielectric and piezoelectric characteristics of a piezoelectric composite