Nanofibrillated and bacterial celluloses as renewable piezoelectric sensor materials

Cellulose based nanomaterials, generally known as nanocellulose, are interesting renewable biomaterial which has potential applications for example in material science, electronics and biomedical engineering and diagnostics [1]. Cellulose has a strong ability to form light-weight, highly porous, entangled networks makes nanocellulose suitable as substrate or membrane material for various applications, for example as a material for in supercapacitors in different ways [2, 3, 4]. The piezoelectricity of wood was proposed already in 1950’s [5], but only slightly studied since. Here, we report the experimental evidence of significant piezoelectric activity of different type nanocellulose films. We have studied both wood-based cellulose nanofibril (CNF) films [6] and bacterial nanocellulose (BC) films [7] (see Figure 1), as well as composite of chitosan and cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) [8]. Our results suggest that nanocellulose is a potential bio-based piezoelectric sensor material. [1] R. J. Moon et al., Chemical Society Reviews 40(7), 3941 (2007). [2] S. Tuukkanen, S. Lehtimäki, F. Jahangir, A. P. Eskelinen, D. Lupo, S. Franssila, Proceedings of Electronics System-Integration Technology Conference (ESTC) 1-6 (2014). [3] K. Torvinen, S. Lehtimäki, J. T. Keränen, J. Sievänen, J. Vartiainen, E. Hellén, D. Lupo, S. Tuukkanen, Electronic Materials Letters 11(6), 1040 (2015). [4] J. Virtanen, J. Keskinen, A. Pammo, E. Sarlin, S. Tuukkanen, Cellulose 24(8), 3387 (2017). [5] E. Fukada, J Phys Soc Japan, 10, 149 (1955). [6] S. Rajala, T. Siponkoski, E. Sarlin, M. Mettänen, M. Vuoriluoto, A. Pammo, J. Juuti, O. J. Rojas, S. Franssila, S. Tuukkanen, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 8(24), 15607 (2016). [7] R. Mangayil, S. Rajala, A. Pammo, E. Sarlin, J. Luo, V. Santala, M. Karp, S. Tuukkanen, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 9(22), 19048 (2017). [8] A. Hänninen, S. Rajala, T. Salpavaara, M. Kellomäki, S. Tuukkanen, Procedia Engineering 168, 1176 (2016).