Abstract
Dielectric elastomers offer the promise of energy harvesting with few moving parts. Power can be produced simply by stretching and contracting a relatively low-cost rubbery material. This simplicity, combined with demonstrated high energy density and high efficiency, suggests that dielectric elastomers are promising for a wide range of energy harvesting applications. Indeed, dielectric elastomers have been demonstrated to harvest energy from human walking, ocean waves, flowing water, blowing wind, and pushing buttons. While the technology is promising, there are challenges that must be addressed if dielectric elastomers are to be a successful and economically viable energy harvesting technology. These challenges include developing materials and packaging that sustains long lifetime over a range of environmental conditions, design of the devices that stretch the elastomer material, as well as system issues such as practical and efficient energy harvesting circuits. Progress has been made in many of these areas. We have demonstrated energy harvesting transducers that have operated over 5 million cycles. We have also shown the ability of dielectric elastomer material to survive for months underwater while undergoing voltage cycling. We have shown circuits capable of 78% energy harvesting efficiency. While the possibility of long lifetime has been demonstrated at the watt level, reliably scaling up to the power levels required for providing renewable energy to the power grid or for local use will likely require further development from the material through to the systems level.
RD Kornbluh, R Pelrine, H Prahlad, A Wong-Foy, B McCoy, S Kim, J Eckerle, T Low, “From Boots to Buoys: Promises and Challenges of Dielectric Elastomer Energy Harvesting,” SPIE Proc 7976: 48–66, Bellingham, WA, 2011 [doi: 10.1117/12.882367], reprinted with permission.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Pelrine R, Kornbluh R, Pei Q, Joseph J (2000) High-speed electrically actuated elastomers with over 100% strain. Science 287(5454):836–839
Kornbluh R, Pelrine R, Pei Q, Oh S, Joseph J (2000) Ultrahigh strain response of field-actuated elastomeric polymers. Proc SPIE 3987:51–64
Brochu P, Pei Q (2010) Advances in dielectric elastomers for actuators and artificial muscles. Macromol Rapid Commun 31:10–36
Carpi F, DeRossi D, Kornbluh R, Pelrine R, Sommer-Larsen P (2008) Dielectric elastomers as electromechanical transducers. Fundamentals, materials, devices, models and applications of an emerging electroactive polymer technology. Elsevier Press, Amsterdam
Pelrine R, Kornbluh R, Eckerle J, Jeuck P, Oh S, Pei Q, Stanford S (2001) Dielectric elastomers: generator mode fundamentals and applications. Proc SPIE 4329:148–156
Koh SJA, Keplinger C, Li T, Bauer S, Suo Z (2011) Dielectric elastomer generators: how much energy can be converted. IEEE/ASME Trans Mechatron 16:3–41
Carpi F, DeRossi D, Kornbluh R, Pelrine R, Somer-Larsen P (2008) Dielectric elastomers as electromechanical transducers. fundamentals, materials, devices, models and applications of an emerging electroactive polymer technology. Elsevier Press, Amsterdam, pp 141–145
Graf C, Maas J, Schapeler D (2010) Energy harvesting cycles based on electro active polymers. Proc SPIE 7642:764217-1–764217-12
Graf C, Maas J, Schapeler D (2010) Optimized energy harvesting based on electro active polymers. (ICSD), 2010 10th IEEE international conference on solid dielectrics, pp 752–756
Pelrine R, Kornbluh R, Joseph J (1998) Electrostriction of polymer dielectrics with compliant electrodes as a means of actuation. Sens Actuators A Phys 64:74–85
Carpi F, DeRossi D, Kornbluh R, Pelrine R, Somer-Larsen P (2008) Dielectric elastomers as electromechanical transducers. Elsevier Press, Amsterdam, pp 33–42
Ha SM, Park IS, Wissler M, Pelrine R, Stanford S, Kim KJ, Kovacs G, Pei Q (2008) High electromechanical performance of electroelastomers based on interpenetrating polymer networks. Proc SPIE 6927:69272C1–69272C9
Kofod G, McCarthy DN, Stoyanov H, Kollosche M, Risse S, Ragusch H, Rychkov D, Dansachmuller M, Wache R (2010) Materials science on the nano-scale for improvements in actuation properties of dielectric elastomer actuators. Proc SPIE 7642:76420J. doi:10.1117/12.847281
Carpi F, DeRossi D, Kornbluh R, Pelrine R, Somer-Larsen P (2008) Dielectric elastomers as electromechanical transducers. fundamentals, materials, devices, models and applications of an emerging electroactive polymer technology. Elsevier Press, Amsterdam Chapter 7
Benslimane M, Kiil H-E, Tryson MJ (2010) Electromechanical properties of novel large strain PolyPower film and laminate components for DEAP actuator and sensor applications. Proc SPIE 7642:764231
Carpi F, DeRossi D, Kornbluh R, Pelrine R, Somer-Larsen P (2008) Dielectric elastomers as electromechanical transducers. fundamentals, materials, devices, models and applications of an emerging electroactive polymer technology. Elsevier Press, Amsterdam, pp 79–90
Rupp CJ, Dunn ML, Maute K (2010) Analysis of piezoelectric energy harvesting systems with non-linear circuits using the harmonic balance method. J Intell Mater Syst Str 2010 21:1383. originally published online 10 Sept 2010
McKay T, O’Brien B, Calius E, Anderson I (2010) Self-priming dielectric elastomer generators. Smart Mater Struct 19(5):055025
Carpi F, DeRossi D, Kornbluh R, Pelrine R, Somer-Larsen P (2008) Dielectric elastomers as electromechanical transducers. fundamentals, materials, devices, models and applications of an emerging electroactive polymer technology. Elsevier Press, Amsterdam, pp 146–155
Jean-Mistral C, Basrour S, Chaillout J-J (2010) Comparison of electroactive polymere for energy-scavenging applications. Smart Mater Struct 19(8):085012
Liu Y, Ren KL, Hofmann HF, Zhang Q (2005) Investigation of electrostrictive polymers for energy harvesting. IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control 52(12):2411–2417
Starner T (1996) Human powered wearable computing. IBM Syst J 35(3):618–629
Rome LC, Flynn L, Goldman EM, Yoo TD (2005) Generating electricity while walking with loads. Science 309(5741):1725–1728
Alexander RM (2005) Models and the scaling of energy costs for locomotion. J Exp Biol 208:1645–1652
Kuo AD, Donelan JM, Ruina A (2005) Energetic consequences of walking like an inverted pendulum: step-to-step transitions. Exerc Sport Sci Rev 33:88–97
Paradiso JA, Starner T (2005) Energy scavenging for mobile and wireless electronics. IEEE Pervasive Comput 4(1):18–27
Winter DA (1983) Moments of force and mechanical power in jogging. J Biomech 16:91–97
EPRI (2005) Ocean tidal and wane energy, renewable energy technical assessment guide. TAG-RE 1010489
Prahlad H, Kornbluh R, Pelrine R, Stanford S, Eckerle J, Oh S (2005) Polymer power: dielectric elastomers and their applications in distributed actuation and power generation. In: Proceedings of ISSS 2005 international conference on smart materials structures and systems, pp SA-100–SA-107
Mars WV, Fatemi A (2002) A literature survey on fatigue analysis approaches for rubber. Int J Fatigue 24(9):949–961
Zakrevskii VA, Sudar NT, Zaopo A, Dubitsky YA (2003) Mechanism of electrical degradation and breakdown of insulating polymers. J Appl Phys 93:2135
Plante J-S, Dubowsky S (2006) Large-scale failure modes of dielectric elastomer actuators. Int J Solids Struct 43:7727–7751
Kornbluh R, Wong-Foy A, Pelrine R, Prahlad H, McCoy B (2010) Long-lifetime all-polymer artificial muscle transducers. Proceedings of 2010 MRS spring meeting, Symposium JJ
Rosenthal M, Biggs SJ. Personal communication, March (2010) and February (2011)
Thomsen B, Tryson M (2009) Highly accelerated stress testing (HAST) of DEAP actuators. Proc SPIE 7287:102–113
Mohamed B, Kiil H-E, Tryson MJ (2010) Electromechanical properties of novel large strain PolyPower film and laminate components for DEAP actuator and sensor applications. Proc SPIE 7642:764231
Lam T, Tran H, Yuan W, Yu Z, Ha SM, Kaner R, Pei Q (2008) Polyaniline nanofibers as a novel electrode material for fault-tolerant dielectric elastomer actuators. Proc SPIE 6927:69270O-4
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank their colleagues at SRI international whose efforts contributed to the work presented here. We would also like to thank the numerous clients and government funding agencies whose support over the past 20 years has enabled much of the work presented here. We would like to thank in particular Mr. Shuiji Yonmura and Mr. Mikio Waki of HYPER DRIVE Corp., a company that has generously supported our development of the ocean wave power harvesting systems. Infoscitex Corporation contributed valuable information on human kinetic energy harvesting through Mr. Jeremiah Slade.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kornbluh, R.D. et al. (2012). From Boots to Buoys: Promises and Challenges of Dielectric Elastomer Energy Harvesting. In: Rasmussen, L. (eds) Electroactivity in Polymeric Materials. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0878-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0878-9_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-0877-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-0878-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)