Abstract
Advances in functional fabrics enable the realization of wearable devices in the form factor of fibers that can be seamlessly adapted in our daily lives. For mechanical-related sensing and power generation, piezoelectric materials are particularly favorable because they can convert mechanical shape changes into electric outputs. Electrospinning is a widely applied technique to produce extended length of fiber-shaped piezoelectric devices. However, this versatile process normally results in randomly distributed fibers with poor electrical properties and limited response to mechanical stimuli. Here, a stretching-induced alignment method is demonstrated to achieve highly oriented electrospun poly[(vinylidenefluoride-co-trifluoroethylene] P(VDF-TrFE) fibers on a large scale. These globally aligned electrospun P(VDF-TrFE) fibers exhibit an enhanced piezoelectric property and high mechanical endurance. Using this simple stretching method, a high average output voltage of 80% aligned electrospun P(VDF-TrFE) fibers is 84.96 mV, about 266% of their original randomly distributed counterpart. Furthermore, when woven into an outfit, the aligned electrospun P(VDF-TrFE) fiber bundle can work both individually and combined to monitor body gestures including angles of elbow bending and directions of a swinging arm, which may lead to the further development of motion-tracking technology.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1800033 |
Journal | Advanced Materials Technologies |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- electrospinning
- fiber-based sensors
- motion sensing
- P(VDF-TrFE)
- stretching-induced alignment