Fabrication and characterization of piezoelectric gum sensor

Abstract

In this research, the piezoelectric nanocomposites gum sensors are fabricated by direct mixing of constituent materials (ZnO and CNTs) with bubble gum. SWCNTs and MWCNTs are used to compare the effect of their addition to the gum sensor. The mixing process is achieved by multiple folding and stretching of the gum after the addition of the constituent materials .The constituent materials properly adhered to the surface of the gum. The piezoelectric calibration shows that the addition of SWCNTs gives higher piezoelectric coefficient as compared to the MWCNTs addition. The effects of two parameters (temperature and strain) are considered on the sensor resistance to further evaluate the piezoelectric performance of the gum sensors. ZnO-MWCNTs gum sensor has higher resistance as compared to ZnO-SWCNTs gum sensor, which implies that ZnO-SWCNTs gum sensor has a better piezoelectric performance. The mechanical strengths results show that ZnO-SWCNTs gum sensor has the best mechanical strength.