Abstract
Piezoelectric materials are widely referred to as “smart” materials because they can transduce mechanical pressure acting on them to electrical signals and vice versa. They are extensively utilized in harvesting mechanical energy from vibrations, human motion, mechanical loads, etc., and converting them into electrical energy for low power devices. Piezoelectric transduction offers high scalability, simple device designs, and high‐power densities compared to electro‐magnetic/static and triboelectric transducers. This review aims to give a holistic overview of recent developments in piezoelectric nanostructured materials, polymers, polymer nanocomposites, and piezoelectric films for implementation in energy harvesting. The progress in fabrication techniques, morphology, piezoelectric properties, energy harvesting performance, and underpinning fundamental mechanisms for each class of materials, including polymer nanocomposites using conducting, non‐conducting, and hybrid fillers are discussed. The emergent application horizon of piezoelectric energy harvesters particularly for wireless devices and self‐powered sensors is highlighted, and the current challenges and future prospects are critically discussed.
Highlights
Anthropogenic environmental pollution and climate change-related to energy production and consumption present a key challenge to humanity and our technological future
There are various renewable energy types present in our environment ranging from kinetic energy to solar energy and bioenergy, and extensive research has been conducted on energy harvesting technologies to scavenge energy from readily available sources like vibration, human motion, water, air, heat, light, chemical reactions into useful electrical energy for powering small scale devices.[2,3,4,5]
PZT based ceramics are unsuitable for high-temperature applications. Pb free ceramics such as, KNbO3, NaNbO3, etc., are biocompatible which allows their versatile utilization in sensors and actuators transplanted directly into living bodies
Summary
Anthropogenic environmental pollution and climate change-related to energy production and consumption present a key challenge to humanity and our technological future. Pb free ceramics such as, KNbO3, NaNbO3, etc., are biocompatible which allows their versatile utilization in sensors and actuators transplanted directly into living bodies Their properties can be tailored which make them the best alternative in contrast to Pb based PZT ceramics. The third section covers fabrication methods, piezoelectric properties, energy harvesting performance, and mechanisms of piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs) built using nanostructured materials. The fifth section is dedicated to the synthesis, piezoelectric properties, mechanisms, and energy harvesting capabilities of PVDF and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based polymer nanocomposites prepared using different types of fillers. The last section summarizes the paper and provides insight into the current challenges and future perspectives of piezoelectric energy harvesting
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