Abstract
In this paper, we present a method to create a highly sensitive piezoelectric quasi 1–3 composite using a thermoplastic material filled with a piezoelectric powder. An up-scalable high-temperature dielectrophoresis (DEP) process is used to manufacture the quasi 1–3 piezoelectric polymer-ceramic composites. For this work, thermoplastic cyclic butylene terephthalate (CBT) is used as a polymer matrix and PZT (lead zirconium titanate) ceramic powder is chosen as the piezoelectric active filler material. At high temperatures, the polymer is melted to provide a liquid medium to align the piezoelectric particles using the DEP process inside the molten matrix. The resulting distribution of aligned particles is frozen upon cooling the composite down to room temperature in as little as 10 min. A maximum piezoelectric voltage sensitivity (g33) value of 54 ± 4 mV·m/N is reported for the composite with 10 vol% PZT, which is twice the value calculated for PZT based ceramics.
Highlights
Piezoelectric ceramics such as lead zirconium titanate (PZT) have been researchers’ preferred choice in sensing and actuation applications, owing to their low cost and high piezoelectric performance, compared to their counterparts [1,2,3]
The first peak is the melting of cyclic butylene terephthalate (CBT), while an exothermic peak around 194 ◦C appeared before the second melting of CBT, which could have been related to simultaneous crystallization and polymerization of CBT to polymerized CBT (pCBT) [25]
After polymerization of CBT to pCBT, a sharp melting peak at 228 ◦C was seen in Figure 2b, which represents melting of pCBT
Summary
Piezoelectric ceramics such as lead zirconium titanate (PZT) have been researchers’ preferred choice in sensing and actuation applications, owing to their low cost and high piezoelectric performance, compared to their counterparts [1,2,3]. Manufacturing of PVDF based sensors is an expensive process, which, in turn, demands alternative inexpensive material options. Another candidate for flexible sensors is piezoelectric composite, in which piezoelectrically active ceramics nano/micro particles are embedded inside an inactive polymer matrix [8,9]. In order to increase the sensitivity of these composites, higher weight/volume ratios of active filler within the matrix are required, that compromises flexibility of the composite [10] This is due to the fact that the poling field in 0–3 composites is generally concentrated around the polymer and not over the random ceramic particles. A higher percentage of filler is required to observe a higher poling field
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