Micro-Energy Harvesting System with IPMC Strips

• Main Authors: Chen, Yu-Jen, 陳禹任
• Other Authors: Miao, Jr-Ming
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/jcf479

碩士 === 國立屏東科技大學 === 材料工程研究所 === 105 === Ionic Polymer Metal Composites (IPMC) is one of new types of composite materials wherein the central part is Nafion membrane and two sides are metal electrode layers. The thin electrodes are grown on the membrane surfaces as form of a film through eletroless plating techniques. By exploiting its ability to respond as an oscillator, it can be utilized to generate as artificial muscle’s movements and surface crystal vibrations to produce micro-charges as a form of energy harvesting system. An obvious difference from the traditional IPMC manufacturing processes which utilizes expensive platinum metal (Pt) to be the electrodes which means high production costs and a cumbersome electrochemical process, this paper utilized another source of lower cost material, silver metal (Ag) and conducted the electroless plating method to form an Ag-IPMC strips. In this study, Nafion 117 was ground with sandpaper of various grit sizes to explore the different degree of roughness. To be a electrical actuator to generate the micro-power, a laser surface processing was used to pattern the electrodes. Thereby, the electro-actuating performances can be enhanced by producing multi-level twist phenomena during bending tests. Moreover, the cantilever beam structure (Ag-IPMC-Energy Harvesting System) was designed by piezoelectric effect. The micro-voltage relationship between the size and the surface roughness of the cantilever beam is discussed using oscillatory experiments. The AD620 amplifier was used to achieve micro-voltage amplification. An increase in voltage, from 1.25 mV to 40 mV, was observed on same areas of 5 x 1 cm2 series, on decreasing roughness. Hence, the smoothness of the surface highly affects the increase in IPMC power generation.