Mechanical and dielectric behavior of poly(vinylidene)–poly(arylene ether nitrile) composites as film capacitors for energy storage applications

Abstract

Novel polymer composites PEN/PVDF were prepared from poly(arylene ether nitrile) (PEN) and poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) via solution mixing. Due to the toughening effect of PVDF, PEN/PVDF blends with 5 wt % PVDF exhibit higher tensile strength (106 MPa) and breaking elongation (8.09%) than pure PEN does. Because of introduction of PVDF and interfacial polarization, the dielectric constant of PEN/PVDF blends at 1 kHz and room temperature increases from 3.3 to 4.5 with increasing content of PVDF. The dissipation factor (tanδ) of PEN/PVDF blends is relatively low (<0.04) in a very wide frequency range from 250 Hz to 100 kHz. The PEN/PVDF blends show certain piezoelectric behavior (d33 from 0.9 to 1 pC/N) due to the contribution of PVDF. After polarization, the piezoelectric coefficient d33 somewhat increases. The results suggest that PEN/PVDF blends will have potential application in electronic information fields, especially in film capacitors.