Manufacturing, characterization and experimental investigation of the IPMC shoe energy harvester

The development of low power consuming electronic devices attracts researchers to harvest energy with the help of smart materials. Energy can be harvested by many sources available in our surroundings such as solar, thermal, and vibration. Human motion is characterized as a low frequency and high amplitude vibration source for developing energy harvesting devices. In this study, an ionic polymer metal composite-based human shoe energy harvester is manufactured, characterized and analysed for voltage and power output. A double initially curve plates harvester is fabricated with the help of in-house manufactured ionic polymer metal composite and tested under two electrical connections (series and parallel) and two mechanical excitations (1 step/s and 2 steps/s) for voltage and power generation. The overall peak voltage is 111 mV, and the power is 0.064 µW for series connection with 1 step per second excitation. It is also observed that as the excitation frequency increases, the harvester output decreases due to less time for cation accumulation near the electrodes. As a result of its similarity to human motion, IPMC can be an alternative smart material for energy harvesting applications. Although the energy generated by the ionic polymer metal composite is low, an electronic device can be powered by a network of interconnected generators.