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Polymer nanocomposite film based piezoelectric nanogenerator for biomechanical energy harvesting and motion monitoring

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Abstract

With the advancement in the wearable technologies such as, smart watches, electronic skin, and wearable portable device, scavenging the biomechanical energy from human movements have gained considerable attention for designing self-sustainable power system. Here, we have reported a flexible piezoelectric device that can be conformably adhered to the human body in order to harness the energy from diversification of touch and motion. For this, we have fabricated a polyvinyl difluoride (PVDF) polymer based flexible piezoelectric nanogenerator (PNG) device that can harness energy from various human motions and convert it to useful electrical energy. To further improve the performance of PVDF based nanogenerator, hydrothermally synthesized nanosheets of reduce graphene oxide (rGO) and boron doped rGO are embedded in PVDF matrix as a conductive nanofiller materials to enhance the device output performance. Among all fabricated devices based on pristine PVDF (P), rGO doped PVDF (PR) and, boron doped rGO (PBR), the latter generates a maximum voltage and power density of 13.8 V and ~ 42.3 µW/cm2 respectively, which is then used to light up series of commercially available LEDs. Finally, PBR film based PNG is demonstrated to harvest energy from different types of human motion which includes finger tapping, elbow bending, foot tapping, leg folding, and wrist movements. This device demonstrates the potential use of polymer nanocomposite films in self-powered wearable devices.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) with award no (08/133(0042)/2019-EMR-I) for providing the fellowship.

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  1. Department of Applied Physics, Delhi Technological University, Main Bawana Road, Delhi, 110042, India

    Shilpa Rana & Bharti Singh

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  1. Shilpa Rana
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SR: conceptualization, data curation, methadology, fabrication, writing original draft. BS: supervision, writing review & editing.

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Correspondence to Bharti Singh.

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Rana, S., Singh, B. Polymer nanocomposite film based piezoelectric nanogenerator for biomechanical energy harvesting and motion monitoring. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1764 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-11207-x

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