Energy harvesting performance of a novel polymer-nanocrystal composite of P(VDF-TrFE)/ZnO QD films

[Display omitted] •The 0.15 wt% P(VDF-TrFE)/ZnO QD exhibited the maximum energy storage and the highest energy harvesting performance.•The polarization of QDs has contributed to the highest pyroelectric coefficient of the polymer nanocomposite.•Micellar crystallite structures coalesced with elongated rod-like structures contributing to the increment of FE.•Above 0.25 wt% of ZnO QDs, the spherical micelle-like structure becomes saturated to a highly distributed micelle-like hole.•Dipole-dipole interactions of nanoparticles and interfacial polarization increase the polarisation of the nanocomposite. Novel PVDF-TrFE/ZnO quantum dot (QD) nanocomposite films stabilized with organic ligands (TEA) were fabricated using a spin-coating technique by varying the filler composition in the range of; 0, 0.15, 0.25, 0.35 and 0.50 % by weight with a thickness of 200–300 nm. The analysis of the particle size using UV–Vis, XRD and TEM confirmed that the QD size was in the range of 2–3.5 nm. The incorporation of 0.15 wt% ZnO QDs into the P(VDF-TrFE) copolymer exhibited the highest dielectric constant (ε’ = 13.9), remnant polarization (Pr = 10.02 µC/cm2) and pyroelectric coefficient (49 μC/m2K). The micelle-like crystallites and the elongated rod-like crystallites have achieved their optimum growth for the 0.15 wt% polymer nanocomposite. The maximum energy storage density, Ue calculated at 100 Hz is 1.18 Jcm−3 and the highest energy harvesting performance at 1 kHz, FE, is 19.5 J m−3K2 obtained from the 0.15 wt% P(VDF-TrFE)/ZnO QD polymer nanocomposite.