In this study, we investigated the effect of zirconium content on lead-free barium zirconate titanate (BZT) (Ba(ZrxTi1−x)O3, with x = 0.00, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, and 0.08), which was prepared by the sol–gel method. A single-phase perovskite BZT was obtained under calcination and sintering conditions at 1100 °C and 1300 °C. Ferroelectric measurements revealed that the Curie temperature of BaTiO3 was 399 K, and the transition temperature decreased with increasing zirconium content. At the Curie temperature, Ba(Zr0.03Ti0.97)O3 with a dielectric constant of 19,600 showed the best performance in converting supplied mechanical vibration into electrical power. The experiments focused on piezoelectric activity at a low vibrating frequency, and the output power that dissipated from the BZT system at 15 Hz was 2.47 nW (30 MΩ). The prepared lead-free sol–gel BZT is promising for energy-harvesting applications considering that the normal frequencies of ambient vibration sources are less than 100 Hz.
Influence of Ni substitution on structural, morphological, dielectric, magnetic and optical properties of Cu–Zn ferrite by double sintering sol–gel technique