Piezoelectric elastomers, combining flexibility, resilience, and piezoelectric properties, are promising for wearable devices. Blending ceramic fillers into elastomers is common for fabricating piezoelectric elastomers, but electrical and mechanical mismatches hinder synergistic fusion for a high piezoelectric output. Here, we develop a high-performance piezoelectric elastomer by co-dissolving and evaporating an aqueous solution of a molecular ferroelectric material TMCM-CdCl3 (TMCM, trimethylchloromethylammonium) and a waterborne polyurethane elastomer. Slightly increasing the TMCM-Cl proportion modulates piezoelectric properties, while adjusting the TMCM-CdCl3/WPU ratio achieves an optimal balance between piezoelectricity and elasticity. The resulting material exhibits low elastic modulus, large elongation, high elastic recovery, and superior piezoelectric coefficient d33 (42 pC/N) and piezoelectric voltage coefficient (543 × 10-3 Vm/N) compared to PVDF, enabling a remarkable voltage output up to 7 V. This piezoelectric elastomer not only exhibits outstanding resilience but also excellent electrical output performance, making it a highly suitable energy material for flexible wearable devices.
Rao et al. (2026) studied this question.