TY - JOUR
T1 - Interfacial Coupling Boosts Giant Electrocaloric Effects in Relaxor Polymer Nanocomposites
T2 - In Situ Characterization and Phase-Field Simulation
AU - Qian, Jianfeng
AU - Peng, Renci
AU - Shen, Zhonghui
AU - Jiang, Jianyong
AU - Xue, Fei
AU - Yang, Tiannan
AU - Chen, Longqing
AU - Shen, Yang
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Basic Science Centre Program of NSFC (Grant No. 51788104), the NSF of China (Grant Nos. 51625202 and 51572141), the National Key Research & Development Program (Grant No. 2017YFB0701603), and the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2015CB654603).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
PY - 2019/2/1
Y1 - 2019/2/1
N2 - The electrocaloric effect (ECE) refers to reversible thermal changes of a polarizable material upon the application or removal of electric fields. Without a compressor or cooling agents, all-solid-state electrocaloric (EC) refrigeration systems are environmentally benign, highly compact, and of very high energy efficiency. Relaxor ferroelectric ceramics and polymers are promising candidates as EC materials. Here, synergistic efforts are made by composing relaxor Ba(Zr0.21Ti0.79)O3 nanofibers with P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) to make relaxor–relaxor-type polymer nanocomposites. The ECEs of the nanocomposites are directly measured and these relaxor nanocomposites exhibit, so far, the highest EC temperature change at a modest electric field, along with high thermal stability within a broad temperature range span to room temperature. The superior EC performance is attributed to the interfacial coupling between dipoles across the filler/polymer interfaces. The thermodynamics and kinetics of interfacial coupling are investigated in situ by piezoresponse force microscopy while the real-time evolution of interfacial coupling is simulated and visualized by phase-field modeling.
AB - The electrocaloric effect (ECE) refers to reversible thermal changes of a polarizable material upon the application or removal of electric fields. Without a compressor or cooling agents, all-solid-state electrocaloric (EC) refrigeration systems are environmentally benign, highly compact, and of very high energy efficiency. Relaxor ferroelectric ceramics and polymers are promising candidates as EC materials. Here, synergistic efforts are made by composing relaxor Ba(Zr0.21Ti0.79)O3 nanofibers with P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) to make relaxor–relaxor-type polymer nanocomposites. The ECEs of the nanocomposites are directly measured and these relaxor nanocomposites exhibit, so far, the highest EC temperature change at a modest electric field, along with high thermal stability within a broad temperature range span to room temperature. The superior EC performance is attributed to the interfacial coupling between dipoles across the filler/polymer interfaces. The thermodynamics and kinetics of interfacial coupling are investigated in situ by piezoresponse force microscopy while the real-time evolution of interfacial coupling is simulated and visualized by phase-field modeling.
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U2 - 10.1002/adma.201801949
DO - 10.1002/adma.201801949
M3 - Article
C2 - 30537017
AN - SCOPUS:85058026161
SN - 0935-9648
VL - 31
JO - Advanced Materials
JF - Advanced Materials
IS - 5
M1 - 1801949
ER -
