Sandwich-structured poly(vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene) composite film containing a boron nitride nanosheet interlayer

Abstract

High performance dielectric polymer materials are a key point for energy storage capacitors, especially film capacitors. In this paper, a sandwich-structured polymer film is constructed to achieve high energy density and high efficiency. High dielectric materials of poly(vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene) (P(VDF-HFP)) doped with barium titanate (BaTiO₃) are used as the outer layer to achieve a high dielectric constant, and a boron nitride nanosheet (BNNS) layer is inserted between P(VDF-HFP)/BaTiO₃ to obtain a high breakdown field strength of composite films. The results indicate that when the doping amount of the BaTiO₃ nanoparticles reaches 10 wt% and the mass fraction of the BNNS layer is 0.75 wt%, a significant improvement of energy storage performance is obtained. The energy storage density of the P(VDF-HFP)/BaTiO₃/BNNSs composite film can reach 8.37 J cm⁻³, which is higher than 6.65 J cm⁻³ of the pure P(VDF-HFP) film. Compared with the P(VDF-HFP) film doped with BaTiO₃, significant improvement of the breakdown field strength (about 148.5%) is achieved and the energy storage density increases 235% accordingly, resulting from the inserted BNNSs layer blocking the growth of electrical branches and suppressing leakage current. This novel sandwich-structured film shows promising future applications for high performance dielectric capacitors.