Fully Printed Flexible Piezoelectric Nanogenerators with Triethoxyvinylsilane (TEVS) Coated Barium Titanate (BTO) Nanoparticles for Energy Harvesting and Self-Powered Sensing

The improvement of wearable electronics is making energy harvesters appealing, as they lessen the requirement for regular recharge of wearable gadgets. In this work, fully printed, flexible piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENGs) with excellent performance are created using a 3D printing technology. This fully-printing method is based on triethoxyvinylsilane (TEVS) coated barium titanate (BTO) nanoparticles, polyvinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene (PVDF–TrFE), and silver electrode for additive manufacturing. The organic vinyl silane (VS) functional groups, which form a strong bond between inorganic nanoparticles and polymer, contribute to the homogeneous dispersion of BTO nanoparticles in the matrix. Consquently, these fully printed VS–BTO/PVDF–TrFE PENGs outperform their untreated counterpart in terms of output voltage and power density, with a higher output voltage of 54 V even after 13 500 cycles and a higher power density of 28.5 µW cm⁻². In practice, as-printed devices may actively adapt to human movement and detect the pulse from multipoint mechanical activity identification. The fully printed PENGs developed in this work show excellent potential to be used in wearable electronics for a new generation of sensing applications.