Fabrication of β-Phase PVDF/MWCNTs Nanofibers on a Flexible Substrate for Energy Harvesting Application

It is challenging to deposit the pristine polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) in β crystalline phase on a flexible substrate since pristine PVDF exists in the α-phase. This paper presents a novel formation of nanofibers membrane of PVDF in which multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) is added as the composite in PVDF for transformation from α to β phase. The PVDF/MWCNTs nanofibers is electro spun after adding carboxyl functionalized MWCNT with PVDF to form the β phase. The field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) is used to characterize the presence of the nanofiber’s membrane. X-ray diffraction (XRD) is used to characterize the β phase and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is used to detect the functionalized bonds in the formation of PVDF/MWCNTs nanofibers on a flexible Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET). The measurement of the polarization of electric field hysteresis shows good characteristics with Ps, Pr, and EC are 9.58 μC/m<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>, 4 μC/m<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>, and 1 MV/m, respectively. The optimized film has a high potential for application as the piezoelectric material in energy harvesting devices fabricated on a flexible PET film.