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The low surface-charge stability of polypropylene (PP) frequently limits its application as an electret material. In this paper, we demonstrate how the treatment of PP-film surfaces with orthophosphoric acid (H3PO4) enhances their charge stability. To discriminate between the effects of chemical modification and thermal treatment, as-received and annealed PP films are used as reference samples. The electret properties of treated and non-treated PP films are characterized with thermally stimulated discharge (TSD) and isothermal surface-potential decay (ISPD) experiments, from which considerable improvement in thermal and temporal charge stability is observed for samples modified with H3PO4. The half-value temperature (T-1/2) observed on TSD curves of chemically treated PP increases to 131 and 145 degrees C for positive and negative charges, respectively. The enhancement might be attributed to the phosphoric compounds detected on the H3PO4-modified surfaces via attenuated-total-reflection infrared spectroscopy. Deeper surface traps formed at the "foreign" phosphorus-containing structures are able to capture the charges over longer time periods and at higher temperatures, thus leading to significant improvements in the temporal and thermal surface-charge stabilities of PP electrets. Published by AIP Publishing.
The influence of relaxation processes on the thermal electret stability of high-impact polystyrene (HIPS) free-standing films filled with titanium dioxide (TiO2) of the rutile modification are investigated by means of a combination of dielectric methods (dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS), thermally stimulated depolarization current (TSDC) and thermally stimulated surface-potential decay (TSSPD)), supplemented by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). Films with 2, 4, 6 and 8 vol.% TiO2 are compared to each other and to non-filled samples. Filling HIPS with up to 8 vol.% of TiO2 enhances the elastic modulus below the glass transition and increases the thermal electret stability above the glass transition without significantly increasing the DC conductivity. The improvement of the electret stability is caused by the build-up of an interface polarization which decays only gradually if the glass transition is exceeded. Two kinds of Arrhenius processes are considered in order to explain the decay of the composite-polymer electrets: (1) charge release from chemical traps located at the phenyl rings of the polymer chain with an activation energy of E-a = 1.1 eV after passing the glass transition at about 100 degrees C and (2) charge release from traps formed by the TiO2 particles with E-a = 2.4 eV at temperatures above 130 degrees C. Finally, the activation energies are discussed with respect to their significance.
During muscle contractions, radial-force distributions are generated on muscle surfaces due to muscle-volume changes, from which the corresponding body motions can be recorded by means of so-called force myography (FMG). Piezo- or ferroelectrets are flexible piezoelectric materials with attractive materials and sensing properties. In addition to several other applications, they are suitable for detecting force variations by means of wearable devices. In this paper, we prepared piezoelectrets from cellular polypropylene films by optimizing the fabrication procedures, and developed an FMG-recording system based on piezoelectret sensors. Different hand and wrist movements were successfully detected on able-bodied subjects with the FMG system. The FMG patterns were evaluated and identified by means of linear discriminant analysis and artificial neural network algorithms, and average motion-classification accuracies of 96.1% and 94.8%, respectively, were obtained. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using piezoelectret-film sensors for FMG and may thus lead to alternative methods for detecting body motion and to related applications, e.g., in biomedical engineering or structural-health monitoring.