Stimulating Acrylic Elastomers by a Triboelectric Nanogenerator – Toward Self‐Powered Electronic Skin and Artificial Muscle |
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| Authors: | Xiangyu Chen Tao Jiang Yanyan Yao Liang Xu Zhenfu Zhao Zhong Lin Wang |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), Beijing, P. R. China;2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA |
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| Abstract: | Dielectric elastomers are a type of actuator materials that exhibit excellent performance as artificial muscles, but a high driving voltage is required for their operation. By using the amazingly high output voltage generated from a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), a thin film dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) can be directly driven by the contact‐separation motion of TENG, demonstrating a self‐powered actuation system. A TENG with a tribo surface area of 100 cm2 can induce an expansion strain of 14.5% for the DEA samples (electrode diameter of 0.6 cm) when the system works stably within the contact‐separation velocity ranging from 0.1 to 10 cm s?1. Finally, two simple prototypes of an intelligent switch and a self‐powered clamper based on the TENG and DEA are demonstrated. These results prove that the dielectric elastomer is an ideal material to work together with TENG and thereby the fabricated actuation system can potentially be applied to the field of electronic skin and soft robotics. |
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| Keywords: | dielectric elastomers electronics skin self‐powered actuators triboelectric nanogenerators |
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