Flexible and stretchable energy harvesting device using three-dimensional poly(dimethylsiloxane)

Abstract

We propose a flexible stretchable energy harvesting device by implementing permselective pores on a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) sheet for the direct energy conversion of pressure to electrical power. The devices consist of five layers of PDMS, giving full flexibility to the devices. From current-voltage (I-V) measurements, we observed down-shifts in the limiting regime with strains, demonstrating that the permselective pores act as nanofluidic channels. We clearly observed that the limiting region shifts to lower voltages, illustrating that the cross-sectional dimensions were changed, thereby enhancing the ion concentration polarization with external strains. Simply by manual mechanical bending, we acquired a streaming current of 400 nA. (C) 2014 The Japan Society of Applied Physics