A sandpaper assisted micro-structured polydimethylsiloxane fabrication for human skin based triboelectric energy harvesting application

• Published in: Applied energy Vol. 206; pp. 150 - 158
• Main Authors: Rasel, Mohammad Sala Uddin, Park, Jae-Yeong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 15.11.2017
• Subjects: Human skin; Inexpensive fabrication; Micro-structured PDMS; Sandpaper template; Triboelectric generator; Micro-structured PDMS; Human skin; Triboelectric generator; Sandpaper template; Inexpensive fabrication
• ISSN: 0306-2619; 1872-9118
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.07.109

[Display omitted] •Sandpaper assisted fabrication of micro-structured PDMS has been introduced.•No surfactant coating is needed to peel off the PDMS from template.•A wearable triboelectric harvester has been demonstrated using as-fabricated PDMS.•Custom-made wristband facilitates effective contact-separation actions.•Influence of variant input parameters on proposed TEG has been investigated. This paper reports a sandpaper based inexpensive and simple fabrication process of functional micro-structured PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) film to be used as a triboelectric layer. The micro-structured PDMS film was replicated directly from the low surface energy sandpaper template without the use of any surfactant coating, high vacuum or high-pressure equipment. A human skin and PDMS interaction based triboelectric generator (TEG) is demonstrated using as-fabricated micro-structured PDMS film. In our proposed TEG harvester, electrical energy is produced by continual contact-separation processes between PDMS and human skin. Four different micro-structures were compared with flat film and the influences of surface structures on the electrical output of the harvester are systematically studied. Results show that the existence of micro-structures on the PDMS films effectively enlarges the contact area and provides more surfaces for charge storage and hence improve the output performance of TEG. The as-fabricated prototype can produce peak-peak open-circuit voltage up to 103V and 4.8mW/m2 of peak power density, which is exceptionally attractive for the fabrication of self-powered and portable devices. This stable PDMS film with functional micro-structures, which is fabricated using reusable sandpaper template facilitates robust and large-scale fabrication, and has potential for future applications in triboelectric energy harvesting devices.