Nanostructured materials exhibit novel functions and the improvement of the existing properties in a variety of research fields. Due to the high specific surface area of nanostructures, nanoscale fabrication techniques are focused on improving the mechanical and electrical properties for the development of sensors and actuators. Piezoelectric PVDF material is constructed to the nanofiber membrane for applications of an optical sensor and an electrostatic aerosol filter. In a practical application of piezoelectric polymer material, an electrospinning method for the scalable fabrication of nanostructure is introduced to enhance electrostatic charge generation and retention properties for fine particulate matter filtration.

A hierarchical nanostructures are formed by vertically aligned zinc oxide nanowires (ZnO NWs) and silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) attached on the ZnO NWs for fog-harvesting application. Each structure has a different surface wettabilities-the ZnO NWs are hydrophilic and the Ag NPs attached on the ZnO NWs are hydrophobic. To mimic the beetle’s back, different wettability surfaces are patterned as hydrophilic enclosed circles on the hydrophobic surface. The patterning was performed by a selective photo-induced synthetic method with ultraviolet (UV) exposure and pattern masks.

The free surface energy characteristics of hydrophobic membrane with various zeolite concentrations are investigated to control the hygroscopic property of general polymers. Fundamental physical property of wettability with PVDF shows hydrophobicity. The electrospun PVDF film with small weight ratio with higher than 0.1% of zeolite powder shows diminished contact angles that certifying the wettability of PVDF can be controlled using desiccant material in electrospinning process. The surface energy of PVDF film can be controlled by embedding zeolite particles in electrospinning process and applied to filtration application of dust filtering and dehumidification simultaneously with low manufacturing cost.