Metal oxide ceramics support a variety of modern technologies such as electronics and energy. However, these materials are usually hard and brittle, and are easily broken or broken when bent. This mechanical response limits the application of these materials in emerging fields such as wearable electronic textiles. Recently, the nanofiber research team led by Academician Yu Jianyong and Researcher Ding Bin of Donghua University has developed a flexible barium titanate ceramic nanofiber membrane. The research was published in "Advanced Functional Materials" on October 9, 2019 under the title "Polymer Template Synthesis of Flexible BaTiO3 Crystal Nanofibers". The only unit of the paper is the Department of Donghua University. Researcher Yan Jianhua of Donghua University is the first author of the paper. Researcher Ding Bin is the corresponding author of the paper.
In this study, they developed a process technology based on sol-gel electrospinning and low-temperature crystallization to control the preparation of barium titanate nanofiber crystal materials with light polymer-like properties and silk-like softness And explored the mechanism of the influence of the barium titanate grain size and grain boundary morphology on the flexible deformation of nanofibers. It is worth mentioning that, compared with the conditions required for the preparation of crystalline barium titanate by traditional solid phase sintering method, for example, it needs to be calcined at more than 1200 ℃ for at least 12h, the calcination temperature used in this work is 850 ℃ The time is 2h, which reduces energy consumption and time cost. The developed flexible barium titanate ceramic nanofiber crystal film can effectively reduce the stress concentration to reduce the risk of cracking during large deformation, thus designing a piezoelectric sensor, which still has high sensitivity during bending deformation.
The reported inorganic nanofiber manufacturing technology is of great significance for the design of flexible multi-element metal oxide ceramic materials. In addition to the structural design around flexible barium titanate, the application of this technology can also design a series of multi-component ceramic materials that are generally regarded as between soft and hard boundaries. (LLZO) and lithium lanthanum titanium oxide (LLTO) nanofiber materials