Core-shell structured silk Fibroin/PVDF piezoelectric nanofibers for energy harvesting and self-powered sensing
Siqi Wang, Kunming Shi, Bin Chai, Shi‐Chong Qiao, Zhuoli Huang, Pingkai Jiang, Xingyi Huang
Abstract
The development of wearable and portable electronics calls for flexible piezoelectric materials to fabricate self-powered devices. However, a big challenge in piezoelectric material design is to boost the output performance while ensuring its flexibility and biocompatibility. Here, all-organic and core-shell structured silk fibroin (SF)/poly(vinylidene difluoride) (PVDF) piezoelectric nanofibers (NFs) with excellent flexibility are fabricated using a simple electrospinning strategy. The strong intermolecular interaction between SF and PVDF promotes the β-phase nucleation in the core-shell structure, which significantly enhances the output performance. An output of 16.5 V was achieved in SF/PVDF NFs, which is more than 6-fold enhancement compared with that of pure PVDF NFs. In addition, the piezoelectric device can sensitively detect the mechanical stimulation from joint bending, demonstrating its great potential in self-powered sensor. Otherwise, the piezoelectric device can be also applied to control the movement of a smart car, successfully, achieving its application in the human-machine interaction.