Boosting performance of self-polarized fully printed piezoelectric nanogenerators via modulated strength of hydrogen bonding interactions

Self-polarized piezoelectric devices have attracted significant interest owing to their fabrication processes with low energy consumption. Herein, novel poling-free piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs) based on self-polarized polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) induced by the incorporation of different surface-modified barium titanate nanoparticles (BTO NPs) were prepared via a fully printing process. To reveal the effect of intermolecular interactions between PVDF and NP surface groups, BTO NPs were modified with hydrophilic polydopamine (PDA) and hydrophobic 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane (PFDTES) to yield PDA-BTO and PFD-BTO, respectively. This study demonstrates that the stronger hydrogen bonding interactions existed in PFD-BTO/PVDF composite film comparative to the PDA-BTO/PVDF composite film induced the higher β-phase formation (90%), which was evidenced by the XRD, FTIR and DSC results, as well as led to a better dispersion of NPs and improved mechanical properties of composite films. Consequently, PFD-BTO/PVDF-based PENGs without electric poling exhibited a significantly improved output voltage of 5.9 V and power density of 102 μW cm⁻³, which was 1.8 and 2.9 times higher than that of PDA-BTO/PVDF-based PENGs, respectively. This study provides a promising approach for advancing the search for high-performance, self-polarized PENGs in next-generation electric and electronic industries.