Enhanced piezoelectric response of PVDF by incorporating of BaTiO₃ nanoparticles and surface treatment

This work aims to enhance the piezoelectric response of PVDF films through the incorporating of BaTiO₃ nanoparticles as well as corona poling and cold plasma treatments. An optimized wet ball-milling process was used to fabricate BaTiO₃ nanoparticles using commercial submicron BaTiO₃ particles. In addition, a fluoroalkyl silane (FAS) solution was used to functionalize the surface of BaTiO₃ nanoparticles to prevent the agglomeration of the nanoparticles and induce more affinity with the PVDF matrix. The morphology of PVDF-BaTiO₃ composite films was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray diffractometry (XRD) were used to investigate the phase analysis of samples. The results revealed that incorporating the functionalized BaTiO₃ nanoparticles within the PVDF layer increases the piezoelectric response of pure PVDF from 1.05 mV to 1.46 mV which is more than that of the sample with incorporated micron size BaTiO₃ (1.28 mV). Cold plasma treatment increased the wettability of PVDF, significantly, which reduced the water contact angle from 71° to 21°. In addition, the corona polarization enhanced the piezoelectric response of the samples, which increased the output voltage to 1.53 mV.