Energy Harvesting using PVDF Piezoelectric Nanofabric

Energy harvesting using piezoelectric nanomaterial provides an opportunity for advancement towards self-powered electronics. The fabrication complexities and limited power output of these nano/micro generators have hindered these advancements thus far. This thesis presents a fabrication technique with electrospinning using a grounded cylinder as the collector. This method addresses the difficulties with the production and scalability of the nanogenerators. The non-aligned nanofibers are woven into a textile form onto the cylindrical drum that can be easily removed. The electrical poling and mechanical stretching induced by the electric field and the drum rotation increase the concentration of the piezoelectric β phase in the PVDF nanofabric. The nanofabric is placed between two layers of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) that have interdigitated electrodes painted on them with silver paint. Applying continuous load onto the flexible PVDF nanofabric at 35Hz produces a peak voltage of 320 mV and maximum power of 2200 pW/(cm^2) .M.A.S