Issue 8, 2018

Flexible three-dimensional interconnected piezoelectric ceramic foam based composites for highly efficient concurrent mechanical and thermal energy harvesting

Abstract

Flexible piezoelectric materials are pivotal to a variety of emerging applications ranging from wearable electronic devices, sensors to biomedical devices. Current ceramic-polymer composites with embedded low-dimensional ceramic fillers, though mechanically flexible, suffer from low piezoelectricity owing to the poor load-transfer efficiency that typically scales with the stiffness ratio of the polymer matrix to the ceramic fillers. Herein we introduce the scalable ceramic-polymer composites based on three-dimensional (3-D) interconnected piezoelectric microfoams. Comprehensive mechanics analyses reveal that the 3-D interconnected architecture presents a continuous pathway for load transfer to break the load-transfer scaling law seen in the conventional composites with low-dimensional ceramic fillers. The 3-D composite exhibits exceptional piezoelectric characteristics under multiple loading conditions (i.e., compression, stretching, and bending) and high mechanical durability under thousands of cycles. The 3-D composite also displays excellent pyroelectricity, thereby enabling concurrent thermal and mechanical energy scavenging. Our findings suggest an innovative material framework for high-performance energy harvesters and self-powered micromechanical devices.

Graphical abstract: Flexible three-dimensional interconnected piezoelectric ceramic foam based composites for highly efficient concurrent mechanical and thermal energy harvesting

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
22 Feb 2018
Accepted
20 Apr 2018
First published
26 Apr 2018

Energy Environ. Sci., 2018,11, 2046-2056

Author version available

Flexible three-dimensional interconnected piezoelectric ceramic foam based composites for highly efficient concurrent mechanical and thermal energy harvesting

G. Zhang, P. Zhao, X. Zhang, K. Han, T. Zhao, Y. Zhang, C. K. Jeong, S. Jiang, S. Zhang and Q. Wang, Energy Environ. Sci., 2018, 11, 2046 DOI: 10.1039/C8EE00595H

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