A blended polymer electret-based micro-electronic power generator

Abstract

Recently, power harvesting technologies for low-power electronic devices have attracted much interest. In this paper, the design and fabrication methods of a micro-electrostatic power generator is presented. This power generator comprises a stator developed using an electret film for charge storage and a rotor covered by an interdigital electrode for electric power generation. The newly developed electret material is made from mixing two solutions. The first solution was made by blending polystyrene (PS) and cycloolefin copolymer (COC). The second solution was obtained by an additive process as polar molecule was added into COC. This unique two solution electret method can easily be integrated and adopted to the micro fabrication process. The charge storage capability of this new electret material was investigated and results showed that low concentration of polystyrene in the blended material will not only have more stable but also higher electrostatic charge than that of pure COC. In addition, the polar molecular additives also improve the electret properties of COC due to micro-cavities formation and the interactions between molecules and polymer. Our newly developed blended electret material has excellent mechanical properties and is easy to use when compared to using Teflon Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene (FEP) and polypropylene (PP). A feasibility study of a micro electrostatic power generator based on our blended electret material was performed. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of this new type of micro electrostatic power generator.

Investigating the Electret Properties of Polystyrene and Graphite Composites

“…Here, a large role in their displaying electret properties is played by many factors: the presence and content of impurities, the molecular and supermolecular structure, structural anomalies, the specific nature of the surface, and so on. It is this that explains the interest shown in them by Russian and foreign scientists [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Non-volatile storages are made of electrets based on polystyrene and its derivatives [16,17].…”