Strategies Involved in Enhancing the Capacitive Energy Storage Characteristics of Poly(vinylidene fluoride) Based Flexible Composites

Functional Materials and Devices Division (FMDD) With the progress of the daily lifestyle of modern human being, the need for flexible dielectric energy storage devices for high field applications has become inevitable. PVDF and its co‐polymers, which exhibit excellent flexibility, high breakdown strength, good piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties and low cost, have become very useful in this purpose and hence being investigated widely all over the world. Different strategies including versatile device fabrication techniques and momentous materials engineering have been employed to promote the energy storage characteristics of PVDF based composites. In this paper, we review the current trend of research in the field of PVDF based energy storage devices with the main focus on the strategies involved in enhancing their energy storage performance. Upon extensive literature survey, it has been found that the breakdown characteristics of the composite films are the main determining factor of their high field energy storage applications. The strategies, which can enhance the said performance of PVDF‐based composites, have been elaborately discussed here step‐by‐step and the fruitful approaches for the desired performance enhancement have been proposed. Considering the numerous attraction of research in this field, the gaps and huge future scopes of research have also been comprehensively discussed here. This review article describes the useful strategies followed by the earlier researchers in order to enhance the energy storage characteristics of PVDF‐based flexible composites. The current trend of research in this field along with step‐by‐step guide toward further performance enrichment is described here. The challenges and future scopes of research in this field are also well explored here.