Design and Development of a Low-Cost Direct Ink Writing (DIW) Setup for The Fabrication of a Piezoelectric Nanogenerator

Abstract

This paper reports a cost and space-efficient 3D printing system for the fabrication of complex structures from a piezoelectric polymer. This custom-engineered direct ink writing 3D printer was developed with a customized print head, and a syringe plunger model was used for micro-extrusion-based direct deposition of piezoelectric polymer at room temperature. Further, the piezoelectric polymer, like polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), was used, and a suitable solvent was used for ink preparation. A rectangular sheet was designed using computer-aided design (CAD) software, and then piezoelectric polymer ink was used to successfully print PVDF sheets. After printing of PVDF sheets, we performed X-ray Diffraction (XRD) method for the study of different phases of PVDF. Surface morphology of 3D printed sheets was analyzed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). This mobile fabrication system has considerable promise for producing functional components that could be used in sensors or energy harvesters.