Premium
Melt electrowriting of electroactive poly(vinylidene difluoride) fibers
Author(s) -
Florczak Sammy,
Lorson Thomas,
Zheng Tian,
Mrlik Miroslav,
Hutmacher Dietmar W,
Higgins Michael J,
Luxenhofer Robert,
Dalton Paul D
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
polymer international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.592
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1097-0126
pISSN - 0959-8103
DOI - 10.1002/pi.5759
Subject(s) - materials science , piezoelectricity , difluoride , fiber , polymer , composite material , characterization (materials science) , phase (matter) , nanotechnology , chemistry , organic chemistry
Poly(vinylidene difluoride) (PVDF) has piezoelectric properties suitable for numerous applications such as flexible electronics, sensing and biomedical materials. In this study, individual fibers with diameters ranging from 17 to 55 µm were processed using melt electrowriting (MEW). Electroactive PVDF fibers can be fabricated via MEW, while the polymer can remain molten for up to 10 h without noticeable changes in the resulting fiber diameter. MEW processing parameters for PVDF were investigated, including applied voltage, pressure and temperature. A rapid fiber characterization methodology for MEW that automatically determines the fiber diameters from camera images taken of microscope slides was developed and validated. The outputs from this approach followed previous MEW processing trends already identified with different polymers, although overestimation of fiber diameters <25 µm was observed. The transformation of the PVDF crystalline phase to the electroactive β phase was confirmed using piezo‐force microscopy and revealed that the PVDF fibers possess piezoelectric responses showing d 33 ≈ 19 pm V –1 . © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry