title: Flexible Polymer-on-Polymer Architecture for Piezo/Pyroelectric Energy Harvesting.
abstract: An all polymer piezo/pyroelectric device was fabricated using β phase poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) as the active material and vapor phase polymerized (VPP) poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiphene) (PEDOT) as the flexible electrode overlay material. Inherent problems usually associated with coating polymeric electrodes onto the low surface energy PVDF were overcome by air plasma treating the film in conjunction with utilizing the VPP technique to simultaneously synthesize and in situ deposit the PEDOT electrode. Strain measurements up to the breaking-strain of PVDF (approximately 35%) indicated that the change in R/Ro was significantly smaller for the PEDOT based electrodes compared to the platinum electrode. Plasma treatment of the PVDF film increased the level of surface oxygenated carbon species that contributed to increased surface energy, as confirmed by confirmed by contact angle measurement. The enhanced adhesion between the two polymers layers contributed to a significant increase in the measured piezoelectric output voltage from 0.2 to 0.5 V for the same strain conditions. Pyroelectric voltage outputs were obtained by placing the film onto and off of a hotplate, for temperatures up to 50 °C above ambient. Finally, as a proof of concept, a simple energy harvesting device (plastic tube with slots for mounting multiple piezo/pyro films) was fabricated. The device was able to generate a usable level of peak output current (>3.5 μA) from human inhalation and exhalation "waste energy".
authors: †Thin Film Coatings Group, Mawson Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, 5095 South Australia, Australia.|‡Department of Chemistry, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 5001 South Australia, Australia.
authors: Pejman
authors: P
authors: Talemi
authors: †Thin Film Coatings Group, Mawson Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, 5095 South Australia, Australia.
authors: Marine
authors: M
authors: Delaigue
authors: †Thin Film Coatings Group, Mawson Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, 5095 South Australia, Australia.
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Murphy
authors: †Thin Film Coatings Group, Mawson Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, 5095 South Australia, Australia.
authors: Manrico
authors: M
authors: Fabretto
keywords: PEDOT; PVDF; flexible electrodes; piezoelectric; pyroelectric; vapor phase polymerization