Mechanical Energy Harvesting

1. Triboelectric energy harvesting:

Triboelectrification has shown great potential as a mechanical energy source; however, the underlying mechanisms and materials choice are still unclear. Triboelectric generation consists of contact electrification and electrostatic induction. The charges generated through contact electrification should depend on the workfunction of the electrodes; however, such a parameter is hard to define for insulating polymeric surfaces. Hence detailed studies has to be performed on inorganic insulators, semiconductors and metals with well-defined electronic structures to be correlated to triboelectric output. Doping and inducing of mid-gap states would be further done to study its influence on triboelectric output. Chemical surface modifications utilizing self-assembled monolayers would allow the extension of these results to the conventional polymeric systems. Further studies proposed also include the modulation of the polarizability of the layers adjacent to the contact layers to modulate triboelectric output through electrostatic induction.

2. Dielectric Elastomer Generators:

Dielectric Elastomers are well known for there performance as actuators, but these materials can be used effectively as energy generators. Research on this field have received considerable attention lately, several prototypes were built like wavepower and human kinetic power generators. We made a transparent dielectric elastomer was used as generator using VHB and ionic gel