Functional Fibers Produced Using Electrospinning Techniques for Energy Scavenging Applications

The interest in fabrication of functional materials such as energy harvesting materials has been fueled by the prospects of developing novel, low-powered electronic devices, sensors, actuators, and generators. This chapter focuses on recent developments of piezoelectric fibers and multifunctional fibers using electrospinning and their adoption for fabrication of nanogenerators that can convert mechanical vibrations/force into electricity. In particular, it discusses electrospun piezoelectric fibers and their piezoresponse behavior and also presents their recent applications to develop novel devices. Piezoelectricity in Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) fibers is acquired during the electrospinning process. The chapter demonstrates the feasibility of using these fibers as energy harvesters and nanogenerators. It also shows the feasibility of using electrospinning to obtain magnetoelectric (ME) composites. Electrospun 1D composite fibers can be used as novel ME materials for nanoscale devices. The reduced dimensionality of the nanostructured composite fibers will play a critical role on the ME effect.