Flexible and environment-friendly regenerated cellulose/MoS2 nanosheet nanogenerators with high piezoelectricity and output performance

Siling Chen,Chuanxi Xiong,Zhuqun Shi,Jilong Li,Quanling Yang,Yiheng Song

doi:10.1007/s10570-021-03962-z

Abstract

Flexible piezoelectric nanogenerators for energy harvesting are getting more and more attention nowadays by converting the mechanical energy to electric energy. Here, an environment-friendly piezoelectric nanogenerator based on the regenerated cellulose (RC)/MoS2 nanosheet nanocomposite successfully exhibited a relative high output voltage of 2 V and current of 150 nA under slight press which were 5 and 7.5 times higher than those of the neat RC film, i.e. 0.4 V and 20 nA, respectively. In particular, the MoS2 nanosheets were obtained through a simple, facile and low-cost pathway by mechanical exfoliation in triethanolamine. The nanocomposite film with MoS2 nanosheets content of 4% exhibited a high piezoelectric constant (d33) of 19 pC/N, which was 6.3 times higher than that of the neat RC film (i.e. 3 pC/N). Thus, the RC/MoS2 piezoelectric nanogenerator has great potential applications in the fields of energy harvester, sensors and is of great significance to environment protection.

Highlights

With the consuming of fossil energy and deteriorating of environment, the quest for clean and renewable energy has become an urgent challenge (Goldemberg 2007; Wang et al 2019)
An environment-friendly piezoelectric nanogenerator based on the regenerated cellulose (RC)/MoS2 nanosheet nanocomposite successfully exhibited a relative high output voltage of 2 V and current of 150 nA under slight press which were 5 and 7.5 times higher than those of the neat RC film, i.e. 0.4 V and 20 nA, respectively
The structures of the RC-MoS2 composite films were studied by scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and Xray diffraction (XRD), and the results indicated the formation of nanolayered structure and strong hydrogen bonding between cellulose molecules and MoS2 nanosheets

Summary

Introduction

With the consuming of fossil energy and deteriorating of environment, the quest for clean and renewable energy has become an urgent challenge (Goldemberg 2007; Wang et al 2019). Compared with many synthetic polymers, cellulose has many excellent features: renewability, biocompatibility, biodegradability, high strength, and low thermal expansion (Tayeb 2019; Mishra et al 2019) They have been explored for applications in electronics and functional devices (Soba et al 2016; Chen et al 2020; Toroń et al 2018; Zhai et al 2015; Yin et al 2020). MoS2/cellulose nanocomposite films were obtained by blending exfoliated MoS2 nanosheets and cellulose, followed by regeneration, washing, and natural drying They were used to fabricate the piezoelectric nanogenerator with Al foil as the electrode, Cu wire as the connecting wire, and polyimide (PI) as the encapsulation layer. The piezoelectricity, output voltage and current of the nanogenerator under press were studied in details

Materials

Exfoliation of MoS2 nanosheets

Characterization

And Discussion

Thermal stability

Mechanical property

Piezoelectric property

Findings

Conclusion