Jared Tucker

Piezoelectric materials are solids that can take different forms of mechanical stress, such as shear stress and compression, and create an electrical voltage. This property of piezoelectricity can be found in many common materials, such as bone and quartz, but there are also many polymers that have this characteristic. Because these polymers can be produced on the nanometer scale, researchers have begun testing the viability of this material as a sensor for various different applications. One specific application is using a piezoelectric polymer known as β-phase polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) to measure the fluid flow through a 3D-printed heart. In order to properly measure the fluid flow through the heart, PVDF is being tested as an adequate sensor to line specific regions of the modeled heart. PVDF is a fairly well-known piezoelectric material, but it is possible to increase its electrical output by increasing the porosity of the polymer [1]. This is done by synthesizing the polymer with a certain number of dissolvable particles, such as ZnO, in the solution. After the material is dried, the ZnO can be removed through soaking in an HCl bath. The overall goal of the research project is to test how the weight of PVDF powder, amount of solvent, and drying amount affects the electrical output of the material. From this, the conditions of drying can be optimized in order to maximize the polymer’s viability as a biosensor for the TAVR heart models. FTIR was used to estimate β-phase PVDF ratio within the final samples.