可将机械能转变成电能的介电弹性体研究进展

弹性体材料具有轻质,易加工,价格低廉的优点,广泛用于生产生活各个领域.本文简要介绍了介电弹性体材料发电的基本原理,相比传统利用电磁感应原理的发电机的优势.重点介绍了几种目前研究比较广泛的介电弹性体材料:丙烯酸酯类、硅橡胶、聚氨酯和天然橡胶等,并分析了介电弹性体材料的介电常数、击穿电压和断裂伸长率等因素对发电量和发电效率的影响,及它们作为介电弹性体发电材料的优势和不足.此外,提出了作为介电弹性体发电机所需材料在未来应该重点开展的工作方向.     

Extreme Toughening of Soft Materials with Liquid Metal

Soft and tough materials are critical for engineering applications in medical devices, stretchable and wearable electronics, and soft robotics. Toughness in synthetic materials is mostly accomplished by increasing energy dissipation near the crack tip with various energy dissipation techniques. However, bio‐materials exhibit extreme toughness by combining multi‐scale energy dissipation with the ability to deflect and blunt an advancing crack tip. Here, we demonstrate a synthetic materials architecture that also exhibits multi‐modal toughening, whereby embedding a suspension of micron sized and highly deformable liquid metal (LM) droplets inside a soft elastomer, the fracture energy dramatically increases by up to 50x (from 250 ± 50 J m^‐2 to 11,900 ± 2600 J m^‐2) over an unfilled polymer. For some LM‐embedded elastomer (LMEE) compositions, the toughness is measured to be 33,500 ± 4300 J m^‐2, which far exceeds the highest value previously reported for a soft elastic material. This extreme toughening is achieved by (i) increasing energy dissipation, (ii) adaptive crack movement, and (iii) effective elimination of the crack tip. Such properties arise from the deformability of the LM inclusions during loading, providing a new mechanism to not only prevent crack initiation, but also resist the propagation of existing tears for ultra tough, soft materials.     

Strawberry‐like Core–Shell Ag@Polydopamine@BaTiO3 Hybrid Nanoparticles for High‐k Polymer Nanocomposites with High Energy Density and Low Dielectric Loss

Flexible nanocomposites comprising of polymer and high‐dielectric‐constant (high‐k) ceramic nanoparticles are becoming increasingly attractive for dielectric and energy storage applications in modern electronic and electric industry. However, a huge challenge still remains. Namely, the increase of dielectric constant usually at the cost of significant decrease of breakdown strength of the nanocomposites because of the electric field distortion and concentration induced by the high‐k filler. To address this long‐standing problem, by using nano‐Ag decorated core–shell polydopamine (PDA) coated BaTiO₃ (BT) hybrid nanoparticles, a new strategy is developed to prepare high‐k polymer nanocomposites with high breakdown strength. The strawberry‐like BT‐PDA‐Ag based ferroelectric polymer [i.e., poly(vinylideneflyoride‐co‐hexafluroro propylene), P(VDF‐HFP)] nanocomposites exhibit greatly enhanced energy density and significantly suppressed dielectric loss as well as leakage current density in comparison with the nanocomposites with the core–shell structured BT‐PDA. Coulomb‐blockade effect of super‐small nano‐Ag is used to explain the observed performance enhancement of the nanocomposites. The simplicity and scalability of the described approach provide a promising route to polymer nanocomposites for dielectric and energy storage applications.     

Soft Multifunctional Composites and Emulsions with Liquid Metals

Binary mixtures of liquid metal (LM) or low‐melting‐point alloy (LMPA) in an elastomeric or fluidic carrier medium can exhibit unique combinations of electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. This emerging class of soft multifunctional composites have potential applications in wearable computing, bio‐inspired robotics, and shape‐programmable architectures. The dispersion phase can range from dilute droplets to connected networks that support electrical conductivity. In contrast to deterministically patterned LM microfluidics, LMPA‐ and LM‐embedded elastomer (LMEE) composites are statistically homogenous and exhibit effective bulk properties. Eutectic Ga‐In (EGaIn) and Ga‐In‐Sn (Galinstan) alloys are typically used due to their high conductivity, low viscosity, negligible nontoxicity, and ability to wet to nonmetallic materials. Because they are liquid‐phase, these alloys can alter the electrical and thermal properties of the composite while preserving the mechanics of the surrounding medium. For composites with LMPA inclusions (e.g., Field's metal, Pb‐based solder), mechanical rigidity can be actively tuned with external heating or electrical activation. This progress report, reviews recent experimental and theoretical studies of this emerging class of soft material architectures and identifies current technical challenges and opportunities for further advancement.     

Polar Elastomers as Novel Materials for Electromechanical Actuator Applications

Dielectric elastomer actuators are stretchable capacitors capable of a musclelike actuation when charged. They will one day be used to replace malfunctioning muscles supposing the driving voltage can be reduced below 24 V. This focus here is on polar dielectric elastomers and their behavior under an electric field. Emphasis is placed on all the features that are correlated with the molecular structure, its synthetic realization, and its impact on properties. Regarding the polymer class, the focus, to some degree, is on polysiloxanes because of their attractively low glass transition temperatures. This enables introduction of highly polar groups to the backbone while maintaining soft elastic properties. The goal is to provide a few guidelines for future research in this emerging field that may be useful for those considering entering this fascinating endeavor. Because of the large number of materials available, a few restrictions in the selection have to be applied.     

基于介电弹性体的振荡水柱波浪能发电模拟分析

振荡水柱式(OWC)波浪能采集装置结构简单、成本低;介电弹性体作为发电机可以收集人体能、海洋能、风能等,能量密度高、耐冲击、环境适应性强,利用OWC驱动介电弹性体形变发电应用前景好。在FLUENT中建立二维数值水槽OWC模型分析气室内波高和压强的变化规律;在Abaqus有限元分析系统中将波浪进入气室的模拟压强施加到介电弹性体薄膜模型产生形变,采用Simulink计算介电弹性体发电量。结果表明:介电弹性体发电量随着薄膜面积、气室压强增加而增大;随着薄膜厚度、预拉伸强度增大而减小,并且这两者对发电量影响较大。     

On‐Skin Triboelectric Nanogenerator and Self‐Powered Sensor with Ultrathin Thickness and High Stretchability

Researchers have devoted a lot of efforts on pursuing light weight and high flexibility for the wearable electronics, which also requires the related energy harvesting devices to have ultrathin thickness and high stretchability. Hence, an elastic triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is proposed that can serve as the second skin on human body. The total thickness of this TENG is about 102 µm and the device can work durably under a strain of 100%. The carbon grease is painted on the surface of elastomer film to work as stretchable electrode and thus the fine geometry control of the electrode can be achieved. This elastic TENG can even work on the human fingers without disturbing body movement. The open‐circuit voltage and short‐circuit current from the device with a contact area of 9 cm² can reach 115 V and 3 µA, respectively. Two kinds of self‐powered sensor systems with optimized identification strategies are also designed to demonstrate the application possibility of this elastic TENG. The superior characteristics of ultrathin thickness, high stretchability, and fine geometry control of this TENG can promote many potential applications in the field of wearable self‐powered sensory system, electronics skin, artificial muscles, and soft robotics.     

Liquid Metal–Based Soft Microfluidics

Motivated by the increasing demand of wearable and soft electronics, liquid metal (LM)‐based microfluidics has been subjected to tremendous development in the past decade, especially in electronics, robotics, and related fields, due to the unique advantages of LMs that combines the conductivity and deformability all‐in‐one. LMs can be integrated as the core component into microfluidic systems in the form of either droplets/marbles or composites embedded by polymer materials with isotropic and anisotropic distribution. The LM microfluidic systems are found to have broad applications in deformable antennas, soft diodes, biomedical sensing chips, transient circuits, mechanically adaptive materials, etc. Herein, the recent progress in the development of LM‐based microfluidics and their potential applications are summarized. The current challenges toward industrial applications and future research orientation of this field are also summarized and discussed.     

Alkali-free glass as a high energy density dielectric material

One of the greatest challenges in the development of new high energy density materials is to increase dielectric permittivity while maintaining high breakdown strength. The dielectric breakdown behavior of an alkali-free barium boroaluminosilicate glass is shown to have remarkably high DC dielectric breakdown strength (12 MV/cm) and reasonably high permittivity (~ 6), equating to energy densities in excess of 35 J/cm³. This behavior is attributed to highly polarizable Ba ions enhancing the real part of complex permittivity, the low loss due to the alkali-free composition, and the substantially defect-free quality of the glass and its surfaces. To our knowledge, this is the highest breakdown strength reported for a bulk glass, and rivals the breakdown strength more typically observed in pristine thin films of SiO₂. These findings indicate that alkali-free multicomponent glasses may be strong candidates for next-generation high energy density storage capacitors for portable or pulsed power applications.     

Visually Imperceptible Liquid‐Metal Circuits for Transparent,Stretchable Electronics with Direct Laser Writing

A material architecture and laser‐based microfabrication technique is introduced to produce electrically conductive films (sheet resistance = 2.95 Ω sq^?1; resistivity = 1.77 × 10^?6 Ω m) that are soft, elastic (strain limit >100%), and optically transparent. The films are composed of a grid‐like array of visually imperceptible liquid‐metal (LM) lines on a clear elastomer. Unlike previous efforts in transparent LM circuitry, the current approach enables fully imperceptible electronics that have not only high optical transmittance (>85% at 550 nm) but are also invisible under typical lighting conditions and reading distances. This unique combination of properties is enabled with a laser writing technique that results in LM grid patterns with a line width and pitch as small as 4.5 and 100 µm, respectively—yielding grid‐like wiring that has adequate conductivity for digital functionality but is also well below the threshold for visual perception. The electrical, mechanical, electromechanical, and optomechanical properties of the films are characterized and it is found that high conductivity and transparency are preserved at tensile strains of ≈100%. To demonstrate their effectiveness for emerging applications in transparent displays and sensing electronics, the material architecture is incorporated into a couple of illustrative use cases related to chemical hazard warning.     

High‐Throughput Phase‐Field Design of High‐Energy‐Density Polymer Nanocomposites

Understanding the dielectric breakdown behavior of polymer nanocomposites is crucial to the design of high‐energy‐density dielectric materials with reliable performances. It is however challenging to predict the breakdown behavior due to the complicated factors involved in this highly nonequilibrium process. In this work, a comprehensive phase‐field model is developed to investigate the breakdown behavior of polymer nanocomposites under electrostatic stimuli. It is found that the breakdown strength and path significantly depend on the microstructure of the nanocomposite. The predicted breakdown strengths for polymer nanocomposites with specific microstructures agree with existing experimental measurements. Using this phase‐field model, a high throughput calculation is performed to seek the optimal microstructure. Based on the high‐throughput calculation, a sandwich microstructure for PVDF–BaTiO₃ nanocomposite is designed, where the upper and lower layers are filled with parallel nanosheets and the middle layer is filled with vertical nanofibers. It has an enhanced energy density of 2.44 times that of the pure PVDF polymer. The present work provides a computational approach for understanding the electrostatic breakdown, and it is expected to stimulate future experimental efforts on synthesizing polymer nanocomposites with novel microstructures to achieve high performances.     

基于新型纳米复合介电材料的嵌入式微电容制备及特性

嵌入式微电容技术是一种能够使电子器件微型化,并提高其性能及可靠性的方法.研究适用于嵌入式环境的高介电材料,有着重要的意义.采用粒径为92 nm的钛酸钡（BaTiO3）颗粒作为纳米无机填充颗粒,选用聚酰亚胺（PI）作为有机基体制备新型BaTiO3/PI纳米复合薄膜,并对该薄膜的介电性能、耐压特性及温度特性进行了测试;并采用光刻、溅射、刻蚀等工艺,对BaTiO3/PI纳米复合薄膜进行图形化研究,制造嵌入式微电容器件原型,其后对该器件的介电性能进行了测试.测试结果显示,嵌入式电容器件原型的介电常数在低频下达到15以上,击穿场强达到58 MV/m以上,而刻蚀和溅射工艺对薄膜的性能影响不大.     

Flexible Zinc–Tin Oxide Thin Film Transistors Operating at 1 kV for Integrated Switching of Dielectric Elastomer Actuators Arrays

Flexible high‐voltage thin‐film transistors (HVTFTs) operating at more than 1 kV are integrated with compliant dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) to create a flexible array of 16 independent actuators. To allow for high‐voltage operation, the HVTFT implements a zinc–tin oxide channel, a thick dielectric stack, and an offset gate. At a source–drain bias of 1 kV, the HVTFT has a 20 µA on‐current at a gate voltage bias of 30 V. Their electrical characteristics enable the switching of DEAs which require drive voltages of over 1 kV, making control of an array simpler in comparison to the use of external high‐voltage switching. These HVTFTs are integrated in a flexible haptic display consisting of a 4 × 4 matrix of DEAs and HVTFTs. Using a single 1.4 kV supply, each DEA is independently switched by its associated HVTFT, requiring only a 30 V gate voltage for full DEA deflection. The 4 × 4 display operates well even when bent to a 5 mm radius of curvature. By enabling DEA switching at low voltages, flexible metal‐oxide HVTFTs enable complex flexible systems with dozens to hundreds of independent DEAs for applications in haptics, Braille displays, and soft robotics.     

25th Anniversary Article: A Soft Future: From Robots and Sensor Skin to Energy Harvesters

Scientists are exploring elastic and soft forms of robots, electronic skin and energy harvesters, dreaming to mimic nature and to enable novel applications in wide fields, from consumer and mobile appliances to biomedical systems, sports and healthcare. All conceivable classes of materials with a wide range of mechanical, physical and chemical properties are employed, from liquids and gels to organic and inorganic solids. Functionalities never seen before are achieved. In this review we discuss soft robots which allow actuation with several degrees of freedom. We show that different actuation mechanisms lead to similar actuators, capable of complex and smooth movements in 3d space. We introduce latest research examples in sensor skin development and discuss ultraflexible electronic circuits, light emitting diodes and solar cells as examples. Additional functionalities of sensor skin, such as visual sensors inspired by animal eyes, camouflage, self‐cleaning and healing and on‐skin energy storage and generation are briefly reviewed. Finally, we discuss a paradigm change in energy harvesting, away from hard energy generators to soft ones based on dielectric elastomers. Such systems are shown to work with high energy of conversion, making them potentially interesting for harvesting mechanical energy from human gait, winds and ocean waves.     

Weibull Analysis of Electrical Breakdown Strength as an Effective Means of Evaluating Elastomer Thin Film Quality

To realize the commercial potential of dielectric elastomers, reliable, large‐scale film production is required. Ensuring proper mixing and subsequently avoiding demixing after, for example, pumping and coating of elastomer premix in an online process is not facile. Weibull analysis of the electrical breakdown strength of dielectric elastomer films is shown to be an effective means of evaluating the film quality. The analysis is shown to be capable of distinguishing between proper and improper mixing schemes where similar analysis of ultimate mechanical properties fails to distinguish.

     

Improved polymer nanocomposite dielectric breakdown performance through barium titanate to epoxy interface control

A composite approach to dielectric design has the potential to provide improved permittivity as well as high breakdown strength and thus afford greater electrical energy storage density. Interfacial coupling is an effective approach to improve the polymer-particle composite dielectric film resistance to charge flow and dielectric breakdown. A bi-functional interfacial coupling agent added to the inorganic oxide particles’ surface assists dispersion into the thermosetting epoxy polymer matrix and upon composite cure reacts covalently with the polymer matrix. The composite then retains the glass transition temperature of pure polymer, provides a reduced Maxwell-Wagner relaxation of the polymer-particle composite, and attains a reduced sensitivity to dielectric breakdown compared to particle epoxy composites that lack interfacial coupling between the composite filler and polymer matrix. Besides an improved permittivity, the breakdown strength and thus energy density of a covalent interface nanoparticle barium titanate in epoxy composite dielectric film, at a 5 vol.% particle concentration, was significantly improved compared to a pure polymer dielectric film. The interfacially bonded, dielectric composite film had a permittivity ∼6.3 and at a 30 μm thickness achieved a calculated energy density of 4.6 J/cm³.     

Flexible Nanodielectric Materials with High Permittivity for Power Energy Storage

Study of flexible nanodielectric materials (FNDMs) with high permittivity is one of the most active academic research areas in advanced functional materials. FNDMs with excellent dielectric properties are demonstrated to show great promise as energy‐storage dielectric layers in high‐performance capacitors. These materials, in common, consist of nanoscale particles dispersed into a flexible polymer matrix so that both the physical/chemical characteristics of the nanoparticles and the interaction between the nanoparticles and the polymers have crucial effects on the microstructures and final properties. This review first outlines the crucial issues in the nanodielectric field and then focuses on recent remarkable research developments in the fabrication of FNDMs with special constitutents, molecular structures, and microstructures. Possible reasons for several persistent issues are analyzed and the general strategies to realize FNDMs with excellent integral properties are summarized. The review further highlights some exciting examples of these FNDMs for power‐energy‐storage applications.     

Phoretic Liquid Metal Micro/Nanomotors as Intelligent Filler for Targeted Microwelding

Micro/nanomotors (MNMs) have emerged as active micro/nanoplatforms that can move and perform functions at small scales. Much of their success, however, hinges on the use of functional properties of new materials. Liquid metals (LMs), due to their good electrical conductivity, biocompatibility, and flexibility, have attracted considerable attentions in the fields of flexible electronics, biomedicine, and soft robotics. The design and construction of LM‐based motors is therefore a research topic with tremendous prospects, however current approaches are mostly limited to macroscales. Here, the fabrication of an LM‐MNM (made of Galinstan, a gallium–indium–tin alloy) is reported and its potential application as an on‐demand, self‐targeting welding filler is demonstrated. These LM‐MNMs (as small as a few hundred nanometers) are half‐coated with a thin layer of platinum (Pt) and move in H₂O₂ via self‐electrophoresis. In addition, the LM‐MNMs roaming in a silver nanowire network can move along the nanowires and accumulate at the contact junctions where they become fluidic and achieve junction microwelding at room temperature by reacting with acid vapor. This work presents an intelligent and soft nanorobot capable of repairing circuits by welding at small scales, thus extending the pool of available self‐propelled MNMs and introducing new applications.     

Highly Stretchable Polymer Composite with Strain-Enhanced Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Effectiveness

Polymer composites with electrically conductive fillers have been developed as mechanically flexible, easily processable electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials. Although there are a few elastomeric composites with nanostructured silvers and carbon nanotubes showing moderate stretchability, their EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) deteriorates consistently with stretching. Here, a highly stretchable polymer composite embedded with a three-dimensional (3D) liquid-metal (LM) network exhibiting substantial increases of EMI SE when stretched is reported, which matches the EMI SE of metallic plates over an exceptionally broad frequency range of 2.65–40 GHz. The electrical conductivities achieved in the 3D LM composite are among the state-of-the-art in stretchable conductors under large mechanical deformations. With skin-like elastic compliance and toughness, the material provides a route to meet the demands for emerging soft and human-friendly electronics.     

Increased permittivity nanocomposite dielectrics by controlled interfacial interactions

The use of nanoparticles in polymer composite dielectrics has promised great improvements, but useful results have been elusive. Here, the importance of the interfacial interactions between the nanoparticles and the polymer matrix are investigated in TiO₂ nanocomposites for dielectric materials using surface functionalisation. The interface is observed to dominate the nanocomposite properties and leads to a threefold increase in permittivity at volume fractions as low as 10%. Surface functionalisation of the filler nanoparticles with silanes allows control of this interface, avoiding significant degradation of the other important material properties, particularly electrical breakdown strength, and resulting in a material that is demonstrated successfully as an active material in a dielectric elastomer actuator application with increased work output compared to the pure polymer. Although further permittivity increases are observed when the interface regions have formed a percolation network, the other material properties deteriorate. The observation of percolation behaviour allows the interface thickness to be estimated.