Robotic Materials

Natural Rubber for Sustainable High-Power Electrical Energy Generation

2014

Article

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Clean, renewable and abundant sources of energy, such as the vast energy of ocean waves, are untapped today, because no technology exists to convert such mechanical motions to electricity economically. Other sources of mechanical energy, such as motions of people and vibrations of buildings and bridges, can potentially power portable electronics and distributed sensors. Here we show that natural rubber can be used to construct generators of high performance and low cost. Natural rubber has higher elastic modulus, fracture energy and dielectric strength than a commonly studied acrylic elastomer. We demonstrate high energy densities (369 mJ g−1) and high power densities (200 mW g−1), and estimate low levelized cost of electricity (5–11 ct kW−1 h−1). Soft generators based on natural rubber enable clean, low-cost, large-scale generation of electricity.

Author(s): Rainer Kaltseis and Christoph Keplinger and Soo Jin Adrian Koh and Richard Baumgartner and Yu Feng Goh and Wee Hoe Ng and Alexander Kogler and Andreas Tröls and Choon Chiang Foo and Zhigang Suo and Siegfried Bauer
Journal: RSC Advances
Volume: 4
Number (issue): 53
Pages: 27905--27913
Year: 2014
Month: June
Department(s): Robotic Materials
Bibtex Type: Article (article)
Paper Type: Journal
DOI: 10.1039/C4RA03090G
State: Published

BibTex 

@article{Keplinger14-RSC-Rubber,
  title = {Natural Rubber for Sustainable High-Power Electrical Energy Generation},
  author = {Kaltseis, Rainer and Keplinger, Christoph and Koh, Soo Jin Adrian and Baumgartner, Richard and Goh, Yu Feng and Ng, Wee Hoe and Kogler, Alexander and Tr{\"o}ls, Andreas and Foo, Choon Chiang and Suo, Zhigang and Bauer, Siegfried},
  journal = {RSC Advances},
  volume = {4},
  number = {53},
  pages = {27905--27913},
  month = jun,
  year = {2014},
  doi = {10.1039/C4RA03090G },
  month_numeric = {6}
}