Abstract
Recently, a cellulose-based composite material with a thin ZnO nanolayer—namely, ZnO nanocoated cellulose film (ZONCE)—was fabricated to increase its piezoelectric charge constant. However, the fabrication method has limitations to its application in mass production. In this paper, a hydrothermal synthesis method suitable for the mass production of ZONCE (HZONCE) is proposed. A simple hydrothermal synthesis which includes a hydrothermal reaction is used for the production, and the reaction time is controlled. To improve the piezoelectric charge constant, the hydrothermal reaction is conducted twice. HZONCE fabricated by twice-hydrothermal reaction shows approximately 1.6-times improved piezoelectric charge constant compared to HZONCE fabricated by single hydrothermal reaction. Since the fabricated HZONCE has high transparency, dielectric constant, and piezoelectric constant, the proposed method can be applied for continuous mass production.
Highlights
Cellulose is one of the most abundant biopolymers in the world—more than 200 billion tons of lignocellulosics are produced every year [1]
The existence of a Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanolayer cannot be HZONCE was prepared with various reaction times from 2 to 6 h
To achieve practical mass production, ZnO nanocoated cellulose films were fabricated by using several hydrothermal synthesis methods (HZONCE)
Summary
Cellulose is one of the most abundant biopolymers in the world—more than 200 billion tons of lignocellulosics are produced every year [1]. Utilizing the piezoelectric property of cellulose, its possibility of application has been investigated in fields such as actuators, temperature sensors, strain sensors, and speakers, etc. Since cellulose-based composites with highly functional nanomaterials are flexible and disposable, efforts have been made for the development of cellulose-based multifunctional nanocomposites for biosensors, chemical sensors, and paper transistors [8,9,10,11]. Inorganic oxide nanomaterials such as tin dioxide (SnO2 ) and titanium dioxide (TiO2 ) can be interacted with cellulose due to abundant hydroxyl (OH) groups of cellulose chains [12]. Zinc oxide (ZnO) has been highly spotlighted due to its piezoelectricity and wide band gap (3.37 eV) property, which is utilized for energy harvesters and semiconducting devices [13,14,15]
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