Optimized Near-field Electrospinning of Polyvinylidene Fluoride Fibers for Enhanced Piezoelectric Sensor Performance

Conventional far-field electrospinning typically produces randomly oriented fibers, limiting the performance of piezoelectric sensors.We demonstrate a near-field electrospinning (NFES) approach to fabricate highly aligned piezoelectric fiber sensors with controlled morphology.Pure polyvinylidene f luoride (PVDF) and PVDF-graphene composite solutions were systematically evaluated under various applied voltages, needle-to-collector distances, and flow rates.Taylor cone stability was correlated with fiber uniformity and diameter distribution.Optimal conditions (11 wt% PVDF, applied voltage: 2 kV, needle-to-collector distance: 1 mm, flow rate: 1 mL/h) yielded highly aligned fibers with an average diameter of 26.7 m and excellent consistency.The fabricated sensor, integrated with a 7 kHz high-pass filter, exhibited 472 mV output voltage under 5 N tapping stimulation at 2 Hz, showing significant potential for wearable tactile sensing applications.The PVDF-graphene composite demonstrated 23% higher sensitivity than pure PVDF, attributed to enhanced interfacial polarization.