Enhanced Piezoelectric Performance of Electrospun PVDF Nanofibers with Liquid Metal Electrodes

The electrospun poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) nanofibers have attracted the research interests for its unique features of flexibility and piezoelectric performance, which has the potential being the energy source for low power devices. The contact between the PVDF nanofabric mat and the traditional electrodes only covers small portion of the generated piezoelectric charge. We tried to address this issue by improving the chances when generated charges can be picked up more. So liquid metal is used for improved contact area between the electrodes and the fabric mat in this paper. For comparison, conventional solid state metal electrodes and liquid metal electrodes are used in two samples. The piezoelectric performance of the sample with liquid metal electrodes is better than that with solid metal electrodes both in open circuit voltage and short circuit current, as well as the output power. Finally a nanogenerator based on liquid metal is made to light up a LED. (C) 2018 The Electrochemical Society.