Figure of merit comparison of PP-based electret and PVDF-based piezoelectric polymer energy harvesters

Abstract

The harvesting of mechanical strain and kinetic energy has received great attention over the past two decades in order to power wireless electronic components such as those used in passive and active monitoring applications. Piezoelectric ceramics, such as PZT (lead zirconate titanate), constitute the most commonly used electromechanical interface in vibration energy harvesters. However, there are applications in which piezoelectric ceramics cannot be used due to their low allowable curvature and brittle nature. Soft polymer PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) is arguably the most popular non-ceramic soft piezoelectric energy harvester material for such scenarios. Another type of polymer that has received less attention is PP (polypropylene) for electret-based energy harvesting using the thickness mode (33-mode). This work presents figure of merit comparison of PP versus PVDF for off-resonant energy harvesting in thickness mode operation, revealing substantial advantage of PP over PVDF. For thickness-mode energy harvesting scenarios (e.g. dynamic compression) at reasonable ambient vibration frequencies, the figure of merit for the maximum power output is proportional to the square of the effective piezoelectric strain constant divided by the effective permittivity constant. Under optimal conditions and for the same volume, it is shown that PP can generate more than two orders of magnitude larger electrical power as compared to PVDF due to the larger effective piezoelectric strain constant and lower permittivity of the former.