Electrospinning lead-free 0.5Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3–0.5(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 nanowires and their application in energy harvesting

High performance nanogenerators (NGs) are critically important for energy harvesting and powering micro/nano-devices. Environmentally friendly nanowires (NWs) with high piezoelectric coefficients are highly desirable for enhancing NGs’ performance and expanding their applications. In this paper, we synthesized a new kind of lead-free 0.5Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3–0.5(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 (BZT–BCT) NWs with high piezoelectric coefficients through the electrospinning method and subsequent calcining process. Their crystal structure and formation mechanism were systematically studied. Furthermore, BZT–BCT NWs were made into a high performance flexible NG. It could harvest weak mechanical movement energy and generate an output voltage of 3.25 V and output current of 55 nA, which is large enough to directly power a commercial liquid crystal display (LCD).