Influence of Polar Solvents on Lead Free BCZT Based Flexible Nanogenerators Performance

BCZT, a lead-free material with high piezoelectric coefficient and dielectric constant, has been widely studied to realize nanogenerators. In this work, flexible nanogenerators based on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composites comprising BCZT nanoparticles dissolved in different solvents were fabricated and their piezoelectric performance was investigated. For this study, BCZT nanoparticles were synthesized by a sol-gel method and dispersed using solution mixing into PDMS matrix. In order to form homogenous composite with enhanced performance, several solvent having different polarities were used. The impact of the solvent on the electrical and piezoelectric properties of the nanogenerators were studied. The electrical measurements using impedance spectroscopy illustrates that the PENG prepared by the solvent chloroform presents a high conductivity with a very low resistivity. As well, high level of piezoelectricity was achieved for the composite prepared with high polar solvent maximum voltage of 6.7 V under mechanical stress using a vibration device.