Piezoelectric β-polymorph formation of new textiles by surface modification with coating process based on interfacial interaction on the conformational variation of poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) chains

Novel textiles have received a lot of attention from researchers in the last decade due to some of their unique features. The introduction of intelligent materials into textile structures offers an opportunity to develop multifunctional textiles, such as sensing, reacting, conducting electricity and performing energy conversion operations. In this research work nanocomposite-based highly piezoelectric and electroactive β -phase new textile has been developed using the pad-dry-cure method. The deposition of poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) − carbon nanofillers (CNF) − tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), Si(OCH2 CH3 )4 was acquired on a treated textile substrate using coating technique followed by evaporation to transform the passive (non-functional) textile into a dynamic textile with an enhanced piezoelectric β -phase. The aim of the study is the investigation of the impact the coating of textile via piezoelectric nanocomposites based PVDF-CNF (by optimizing piezoelectric crystalline phase). The chemical composition of CT/PVDF-CNC-TEOS textile was detected by qualitative elemental analysis (SEM/EDX). The added of 0.5% of CNF during the process provides material textiles with a piezoelectric β -phase of up to 50% has been measured by FTIR experiments. These results indicated that CNF has high efficiency in transforming the phase α introduced in the unloaded PVDF, to the β -phase in the case of nanocomposites. Consequently, this fabricated new textile exhibits glorious piezoelectric β -phase even with relatively low coating content of PVDF-CNF-TEOS. The study demonstrates that the pad-dry-cure method can potentially be used for the development of piezoelectric nanocomposite-coated wearable new textiles for sensors and energy harvesting applications. We believe that our study may inspire the research area for future advanced applications.