Simulation of Polyvinylidene Fluoride, Zinc Sulfide, and Cadmium Sulfide as Lead-Free Piezoelectric Material

Abstract

This paper presents a simulation of three different types of lead-free piezoelectric materials for energy harvesting. Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF), Zinc Sulfide (ZnS), and Cadmium Sulfide (CdS) are simulated using COMSOL Multiphysics to evaluate the frequency response and electrical potential for each materials. The simulation consisted of two parts which is 3D block cantilever for simulating frequency response and total displacement. The second part is 2D block bimorph to simulate power generated by varying frequency responses. The simulated result for the first shows that frequency response for each materials is differents for ZnS, PVDF and CdS which 30.897 kHz, 8.517 kHz, and 22.118 kHz. For total displacement is 303 µm which same for each materials. Each material is simulated for various cantilever beam thicknesses ranging from 1-4 µm and result ZnS having the greatest frequency response. For 2D block bimorph model, the highest electric potential is 0.75 V at 60 Hz frequency for ZnS. Meanwhile for CdS and PVDF has less electric potential which 0.6 V and 0.4V at 60 Hz frequency response. For power disspation, ZnS generate 10% more power compare to CdS and PVDF. In the end of the paper, ZnS is excellent lead free material compared to CdS and PVDF in term of aforementioned parameter studied.