Publication

NMSL Lab

Publication

Lead-free piezoelectric nanogenerator using light weight composite films for harnessing biomechanical energy
Author
Nirmal Prashanth Maria Joseph Raj, Nagamalleswara RaoAlluri, Gaurav Khandelwal, Sang-Jae Kim
Journal
Composites Part B: Engineering
Page
608-616
Year
2019

Abstract

Highly desirable to exploit the ultrathin, lightweight, and flexible composite films (CFs) and alternative lead-free piezoelectric materials for biomechanical energy harvesting applications, also gained a huge interest in recent days for various smart sensing applications. Here, Bi4Ti3O12 nanoparticles (BiTO NPs), BiTO NPs/PDMS CFs were prepared by simple sol-gel technique and low-cost spin-coating process. Lightweight composite piezoelectric nanogenerator (LW-CPNG) having 20 wt% of BiTO NPs generates higher electrical responses (12.5 V, 100 nA and 562 μW/cm2) as compared to the other LW-CPNGs upon 10 N force. The intrinsic functional properties of BiTO NPs, CFs, LW-CPNGs were evaluated by considering the hysteresis loop test, weight ratio analysis of BiTO in CFs, switching polarity, stability, commercial capacitors charging analysis, load resistance and external force dependent analysis. Further, LW-CPNGs output was tested for real time applications such as powering commercial light-emitting diodes and monochromatic display devices. The LW-CPNG (20 wt%) generates (10 V, 60 nA) by the biomechanical foot tapping suggest that the proposed device is a thin, cost-effective and potential candidate to harness the waste biomechanical energy in our daily life.