Junhao
Xie
a,
Hongxu
Liu
a,
Jing
Hu
a,
Xuanchen
Zhao
a,
Shixin
Song
b,
Shulin
Sun
*a and
Mingyao
Zhang
*a
aEngineering Research Center of Synthetic Resin and Special Fiber, Ministry of Education, Changchun University of Technology, Changchun 130012, China. E-mail: sunshulin1976@163.com
bSchool of Food Science and Engineering, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun 130012, China
First published on 27th July 2022
Research on linear dielectric glass polymer films with high permittivity and low loss has attracted much attention recently. In the present report, a series of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) copolymers (MG) with different MMA/GMA ratios were synthesized by a continuous solution polymerization and devolatilization extrusion method and their corresponding MG dielectric films were prepared via a solution-processed method. Different from the pristine poly MMA (PMMA) film, the introduction of GMA endowed higher polarity and provided deep traps. Consequently, the MG films demonstrated higher permittivity (5.5–7.0, 100 Hz) and lower loss than the pristine PMMA films. Moreover, the improved Young's modulus and low dielectric/conductive loss led to a higher Weibull breakdown strength of the MG films (450–530 MV m−1). The excellent dielectric performance and breakdown resistance allowed achieving superior energy storage properties for the MG dielectric films. In particular, the discharged energy density and charge–discharge efficiency reached 6.81 J cm−3 and 84.1% at 500 MV m−1 for the MG 8 film. Therefore, this research provides a new dielectric polymer material with good cost performance, which displays potential application prospects in the thin-film capacitor field.
(1) |
U = 1/2εε0Eb2 | (2) |
At present, biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP)- and ferroelectric poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)-based polymer films are the two main types of commonly used dielectric capacitor materials. The state-of-the-art BOPP capacitor film has a low dielectric loss (<0.0002 at 1 kHz), ultrahigh Eb (700–800 MV m−1), and perfect discharging efficiency of almost 100%. However, the non-polar BOPP film merely shows a low energy density below 3–4 J cm−3 due to its low dielectric permittivity of ε = 2.2, even in different electric fields,3,8,10 which leads to a large volume fraction of the capacitor in power delivery systems, which is useful to enhance the energy load. The bulky capacitor dimensions incur higher requirements for the assembly and reliability of power systems, especially under the trend for device miniaturization. Therefore, developing new polypropylene (PP)-based dielectric polymers with high energy density has become particularly important. For example, Chung11et al. fabricated a series of PP copolymers with different contents of -OH side groups. The H-bonding of the inter-chain –OH groups could not only form a unique and stable network architecture but also afforded a high crystallinity. Thus, the PP copolymers obtained a high polarizability and good reversibility, which resulted in a high discharging energy density beyond 7 J cm−3 without any significant energy loss in an electric field of 600 MV m−1. Based on this research, they also produced a new polypropylene-hindered phenol copolymer (PP–HP) by Steglich esterification from the PP–OH.12 The PP–HP copolymer showed similar dielectric properties as PP–OH but better thermal stability, which allow it to be used in harsh environmental conditions. However, the complex molecular design and polymerization mechanism of the reported PP copolymers make it difficult to replace the commercial BOPP dielectric film.
The dielectric and energy storage properties based on ferroelectric PVDF and its copolymers have been studied extensively over the past two decades.1,13–19 The outstanding advantages of these materials lie in their strong dipole moment from the C–F bonds, which results in a high dielectric permittivity (10–50) and breakdown strength (∼700 MV m−1 for capacitor grade films). Furthermore, due to their semi crystalline essence, these fluororesin-based capacitor films can be produced according to the manufacturing principles for commercial BOPP. Nonetheless, owing to the intrinsic dipole coupling, ferroelectric losses, large remnant polarization, and hysteresis still exist. This means that PVDF-based ferroelectric dielectrics cannot be directly applied in AC conditions due to their significantly decreased discharged energy density and low energy efficiency, especially in high electric fields. In order to overcome the disadvantages and promote the applications of these ferroelectric PVDF-based materials in the dielectric capacitor field, some strategies, such as bulky-monomer copolymerization, grafting modification, irradiation-induced crosslinking, and stretch orientation, have been utilized to suppress the cooperative ferroelectricity in the crystals zone.20–23 Though these approaches have obtained different achievements, the high cost and complicated polymerization or modification process still seriously limit their large-scale practical applications.
Based on the above considerations, a linear dielectric of a polar polymer with a high dielectric constant and strong breakdown resistance should be an ideal choice as the capacitor film. According to this standard, polar poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and its copolymers film should be more appropriate due to its excellent mechanical properties, strong polarity, thermal stability, high glass transition temperature, and suitable price cost.24 As a comparison, PMMA exhibits higher permittivity and breakdown strength than pristine PP. Compared with PVDF, PMMA has a lower dielectric loss, and higher Eb and energy efficiency due to the lack of polarization hysteresis. Recently, the dielectric and energy storage properties of PMMA-based films have been reported in some research studies utilizing copolymerization and nanocomposite regulation methods. For example, Zhang's group prepared poly(methyl methacrylate-methallyl alcohol) (P(MMA-MAA)) copolymer dielectric films and investigated their energy storage properties. The -OH groups on MAA formed H-bonds between the -OH and ester groups, leading to a higher Tg and modulus of the P(MMA-MAA) films. A maximum discharged energy density of 13 J cm−3 was achieved, which was 2–3 times higher than for BOPP.25 Cheng and co-workers used Ba0.5Sr0.5TiO3 (BST) nanoparticles to improve the dielectric and energy storage properties of PMMA.26 The results showed that the PMMA nanocomposite film had a high dielectric constant and low dielectric loss with 30 vol% BST addition. Hence, a high energy storage density of more than 11 J cm−13 was achieved.
Compared with the above methods, the present research provides a simpler and large-scale preparation strategy for PMMA copolymers by a continuous polymerization and devolatilization extrusion method. In this paper, a series of MMA and glycidyl methacrylate monomer (GMA) copolymers (MG) were synthesized with different MMA/GMA ratios. On the one hand, the GMA monomer has higher polarity than MMA due to the presence of an epoxy group in the GMA; therefore the MG copolymers show a higher dielectric constant than PMMA. On the other hand, the epoxy group in the GMA provides reactive sites for later modifications, such as crosslinking and interfacial design, for MG-based composites. The MG films were manufactured by a simple solution-casting method and the dielectric and energy storage properties of the MG dielectric films were studied in depth. The deep energy traps provided by GMA led to a reduction in the leakage current and a low dielectric loss. Concurrently, a maximum discharged energy density of 6.81 J cm−3 was achieved, together with an efficiency of 84% at 500 MV m−1 for the MG 8 film, which was 72% higher than the discharged energy density of the pristine PMMA film. Also, the MG copolymer can be mass-produced due to its good cost performance and easily synthetic method, which endow the MG films with favorable prospects as a new commercial capacitor dielectric film material.
The compositions of the MG copolymers are given in Table 1. The detailed calculation process for the GMA relative molar ration in the MG copolymers is provided in the supporting information. The setup used for the MG copolymers preparation and the schematic chemical structure of the copolymers are illustrated in Fig. 1 and 2, respectively.
Designation | MMA content in monomers (wt%) | GMA content in monomers (wt%) | GMA molar ratio in monomers (mol%) | GMA molar ratio in MG copolymers (mol%) |
---|---|---|---|---|
PMMA | 100 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
MG 4 | 96 | 4 | 2.8 | 2.2 |
MG 8 | 92 | 8 | 5.8 | 5.3 |
MG 12 | 88 | 12 | 8.8 | 8.2 |
Fig. 3 1H NMR (a), FTIR (b), DMA (c), DSC curves during the heating cycle (d), and optical transmittance (e) of the PMMA and MG copolymers. |
The influence of the MMA/GMA composition on the glass transition temperature (Tg) of MG films can be seen in Fig. 3c. Compared with PMMA (113 °C), the introduction of GMA made the Tg of MG move to a lower temperature, namely 110 °C, 108 °C, and 105 °C for the MG4, MG8, and MG12 films. This can be explained as due to the copolymerization of GMA in MG, which increased the distance between the molecular chains due to the bigger volume of GMA; therefore, the interaction between the chains became weak and the Tg of MG decreased. DSC was also utilized to determine the accuracy of the Tg, as shown in Fig. 3d. It was found that the pristine PMMA showed a Tg (112 °C) similar to the DMA result. A similar trend to DMA could be seen with increasing the GMA content, i.e., the Tg decreased with increasing the GMA content, corresponding to 107 °C for MG4, 103 °C for MG8, and 101 °C for MG12, respectively. The experimental results were in agreement with the above DMA results. Although the Tg decreased with the GMA content, which still remained at 101–105 °C for the MG12 film, the high Tg of MG is beneficial for a low loss for the dielectric films under a high electrical field. Optical transmission is another critical element for energy storage films, so that they can be more widely applied in a range of applications due to their good optical transmission. Fig. 3e illustrates the optical transmission of the PMMA and MG films from 200 nm to 800 nm wavenumbers. It is evident from the diagram that pure PMMA had the highest optical transmission of 89.9% at 800 nm. When GMA was introduced, the optical transmission decreased slightly, namely to 87.2%, 87.3%, and 87.6% for MG4, MG8, and MG12, respectively. These results suggest that the MG films also possessed good optical transmittance comparable to PMMA.
Fig. 4 Frequency dependence of the dielectric constant (a) and dielectric loss (b) of the PMMA and MG films. |
P(E) = 1 − exp((−E/Eb)β | (3) |
Fig. 5 Weibull distribution curves (a) and breakdown strength and shape parameters (b) of the PMMA and MG films. |
Fig. 6 Leakage current density under an electric field of 100 MV m−1 (a) and Young's modulus (b) of the PMMA and MG films. |
It should be noted that the leakage current density is always utilized as a measure of the dielectric and energy storage performances in the case of high electric fields due to the electric field-dependent loss mechanisms in practical applications. The leakage current density of the PMMA and MG films was tested under a 100 MV m−1 field at room temperature. As shown in Fig. 6a, the introduction of GMA decreased the leakage current from 1.48 × 10−9 A cm−2 for the pristine PMMA film to 3.04 × 10−11 A cm−2 for the MG8 film, which was approximately two orders of magnitude lower than the pristine PMMA. According to previous research, hopping conduction between the charge traps is a typical conduction mechanism in organic materials. The introduction of larger GMA molecules can act as deep energy traps for the electrons, leading to a large residence time for the charge carrier and weak local electric field. Therefore, the copolymerization of GMA suppressed the electrical conduction of MG and the MG films displayed a lower leakage current density,31,32 which was in accordance with the results for the dielectric loss at low frequency. As for the MG 12 film, a slightly increased leakage current of 6.66 × 10−11 A cm−2 could be found in Fig. 6a. Here, the higher GMA content increased the distance between the MG chains and decreased the motion resistance of the charges; therefore, the leakage current was improved for MG 12, which also corresponded to the trend for the breakdown strength.
The Young's modulus of a material also determines the electromechanical failure caused by mutual Coulombic force from the opposite electrodes under an applied field. The formula can be defined as Eb = 0. 606Y/Kε01/2, where Y is the Young's modulus and ε0 represents the permittivity of free space,33,34 which implies a higher Young's modulus is favorable for a higher dielectric breakdown strength. Fig. 6b represents the values of Young's modulus for the PMMA and MG films with different GMA contents. It can be seen clearly that the MG films had a higher modulus than the pristine PMMA film. For example, the highest Young's modulus was 2250 ± 100 MPa for the MG8 film compared with 2070 ± 90 MPa for the PMMA film. Therefore, both the leakage current density and Young's modulus results contributed to the enhancement of the dielectric breakdown strength of the MG films.
The energy density of the dielectric films could be calculated according to the P–E loops in Fig. 8. As expected from the above discussion, it can be clearly seen in Fig. 8a that the MG 8 film had the highest charged energy density, namely 8.10 J cm−3, which represented a 73% increase compared with the 4.67 J cm−3 of the pristine PMMA. The stronger polarization, higher Eb, and low remnant polarization of the MG 8 film allowed it to achieve a high energy storage ability. Similar with the variation of the charged energy density, the MG 8 film in Fig. 8b showed the highest discharged energy density of 6.81 J cm−3, which was 72% higher than that of the pristine PMMA (3.96 J cm−3). In Fig. 8c, all the films had high charge–discharge efficiencies, and the difference between the films was very small. For example, the efficiency of the PMMA film was 84.9%, which was close to the 84.1% of the MG 8 film. The low dielectric loss and leakage current density of MG films are the essential reasons for their high charge–discharge efficiency. Fig. 8d displays the charge/discharge energy density and efficiency of the films when breakdown takes place, where it can be seen that the MG8 film showed the optimum energy storage properties.
Fig. 8 Charged energy density (a), discharged energy density (b), efficiency (c), and relative values (d) of the PMMA and MG films. |
The stability of dielectric membranes is very important for practical application. To evaluate the cycling performance of the films, a fast discharge test was employed repeatedly 30000 times under 200 MV m−1. As shown in Fig. 9, a stable discharge energy density of 1.19 J cm−3 was achieved for MG 8 compared with that of 0.51 J cm−3 for BOPP and 0.93 J cm−3 for PMMA under 200 MV m−1, which therefore represented an increase of approximately 133% over that of BOPP. In addition, the discharge energy density showed no evident variation during the cycle test process, which further proved the excellent cycling stability of the MG 8 film, owing to its low dielectric loss and leakage current density.
Radar plots of the PMMA and MG8 copolymer are given in Fig. 10, which allow the visual comparisons of ε, tanδ, Eb, Ud, and η for the films in order to assess their dielectric and energy storage properties. Among the radar plots, lager areas were obtained for the MG8 film in all areas except for tan δ. The radar images proved the copolymerization of GMA not only improved the permittivity, breakdown strength, discharge energy density, and energy efficiency, but also decreased the loss. Therefore, the comprehensive energy storage performances of the MG8 film were better than those of the neat PMMA film.
Finally, we compared the discharge energy density of a range of pure polymer substrates and their breakdown field strengths, as shown in Fig. 11. Different polymer substrates have been widely reported in recent years and these fall into two main categories: linear and ferroelectric. Although most of the linear polymers are capable of high electric fields, their discharge energy density is still somewhat low due to their poor dielectric constant. For ferroelectric polymers, their inherent dipole coupling properties also limit their use to a certain extent at high fields. In this paper, the MG8 copolymer achieved a discharge energy density of 6.8 J cm−3 in only intermediate electric fields, which exceeds the performance of most linear polymers, and it also demonstrated a good energy efficiency. The low cost of preparation and the ease of production means that it offers the possibility for supporting the later mass production of dielectrics.
Fig. 11 Comparison of the discharged energy density and electric field in this work and other pure polymer dielectrics reported in recent studies.2,7,8,15,35–41 |
Footnote |
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d2ma00437b |
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2022 |