Watching a movie isn’t just a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon, it can also spur new discoveries. A Purdue University team, led by the Ravi and Eleanor Talwar Rising Star Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering Wenzhuo Wu, found inspiration in movie technology that featured robots fixing themselves through a liquid formula. Transitioning from film to real life, the result was a self-powered, wearable device that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy.
“Our work presents an important step toward the practical realization of self-powered, human-integrated technologies,” Wu says.
At the heart of the self-powered device is the LMI-TENG, which is a liquid-metal-inclusion based triboelectric nanogenerator that was created by the Purdue researchers. The LMI-TENG is keen on sensing and harvesting the body’s biomechanical signals, which are then used for power.
The LMI-TENG also contributes to a growing tech market. According to the university, IDTechEx reports “Triboelectric energy harvesting transducers—devices which help conserve mechanical energy and turn it into power—are predicted to be a $480 million market by 2028.”
Wu explains, “We realized that liquid represents the ultimate form of anything that can be deformable and morphing into different shapes. Our technology will enable wearable electronics to take otherwise wasted energy and transform it into energy that can power and control electronic devices and tools used in military defense and consumer applications. Our technology allows the synergistic engineering of TENG components at the material, structural, and output levels.”
The applications are far-reaching, from wearables, healthcare, and robotics, to AR/VR, IoT, and human-machine interfaces, spanning from the consumer to military sectors.
The research is described in the paper, “Wearable high-dielectric-constant polymers with core–shell liquid metal inclusions for biomechanical energy harvesting and a self-powered user interface,” published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.