Printable Organic Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting Devices For Applications In Wearable Biomedical Devices

Thermal energy as an alternative renewable source of electricity can be used in a wide range of applications. Over the past decade, thermoelectric (TE) devices have emerged as potential candidates to convert thermal energy to electrical power. Due to the advantages of using organic TE materials over conventional TE generators, including light weight, low thermal conductivity, cost effectiveness, flexibility, and processability, they have become the subject of universal research in recent years. Poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate)(PEDOT:PSS) is a promising candidate among other polymers to be used in TE modules due to its unique characteristics. Therefore, the focus on this thesis was to design and develop a thermoelectric energy harvesting module using only PEDOT: PSS as the active component. In addition, in order to test the performance of the module, a test setup was designed and developed particularly for the purpose of this work. The performance of the TE device was evaluated by examining an induced voltage resulting from establishing a temperature difference across the two sides of the modules. It was observed that by increasing the temperature difference across the module, the generated voltage will also increase linearly reaching a maximum value of 280 μV for a 40 °C temperature difference. The TE device developed in this work can be used as a power source in a wide range of applications from electronic devices to power supplies for distributed sensor networks in the Internet of Things. However, the main application is wearable medical devices in which the electricity is generated by thermoelectric conversion of body heat

Printable Organic Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting Devices For Applications In Wearable Biomedical Devices

Thermal energy as an alternative renewable source of electricity can be used in a wide range of applications. Over the past decade, thermoelectric (TE) devices have emerged as potential candidates to convert thermal energy to electrical power. Due to the advantages of using organic TE materials over conventional TE generators, including light weight, low thermal conductivity, cost effectiveness, flexibility, and processability, they have become the subject of universal research in recent years. Poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate)(PEDOT:PSS) is a promising candidate among other polymers to be used in TE modules due to its unique characteristics. Therefore, the focus on this thesis was to design and develop a thermoelectric energy harvesting module using only PEDOT: PSS as the active component. In addition, in order to test the performance of the module, a test setup was designed and developed particularly for the purpose of this work. The performance of the TE device was evaluated by examining an induced voltage resulting from establishing a temperature difference across the two sides of the modules. It was observed that by increasing the temperature difference across the module, the generated voltage will also increase linearly reaching a maximum value of 280 μV for a 40 °C temperature difference. The TE device developed in this work can be used as a power source in a wide range of applications from electronic devices to power supplies for distributed sensor networks in the Internet of Things. However, the main application is wearable medical devices in which the electricity is generated by thermoelectric conversion of body heat

Screen-Printed Curvature Sensors for Soft Robots

Castable elastomers have been used to fabricate soft robotic devices and it has been shown that the technique scales well from prototyping to mass manufacturing. However, similarly scalable techniques for integrating strain or curvature sensors into such devices are still lacking. In this paper, we show that screenprinted silver conductors serve well as curvature sensors for soft robotic devices. The sensors are produced onto elastomer substrates in a single printing step and integrated into soft pneumatic actuators. We characterized the resistance-curvature relationship of the sensors, which allows the curvature of the actuators to be estimated from the sensor measurements. Hysteresis was observed, which does limit the absolute accuracy of the sensors. However, temperature characterizations showed that the sensor measurements are not significantly affected by temperature fluctuations during normal operation. Dynamic experiments showed that the bandwidth of the sensors is larger than the bandwidth of the actuators. We experimentally validated that these sensors can be used to detect whether the motion of an actuator has been blocked, clearing the way towards simple-tofabricate soft robots that react to their surroundings. Finally, we demonstrate a three-fingered soft robotic gripper with integrated sensors. We conclude that screen-printing is a promising way to integrate curvature sensors into soft robots.Peer reviewe

Screen-printed curvature sensors for soft robots

Castable elastomers have been used to fabricate soft robotic devices and it has been shown that the technique scales well from prototyping to mass manufacturing. However, similarly scalable techniques for integrating strain or curvature sensors into such devices are still lacking. In this paper, we show that screenprinted silver conductors serve well as curvature sensors for soft robotic devices. The sensors are produced onto elastomer substrates in a single printing step and integrated into soft pneumatic actuators. We characterized the resistance-curvature relationship of the sensors, which allows the curvature of the actuators to be estimated from the sensor measurements. Hysteresis was observed, which does limit the absolute accuracy of the sensors. However, temperature characterizations showed that the sensor measurements are not significantly affected by temperature fluctuations during normal operation. Dynamic experiments showed that the bandwidth of the sensors is larger than the bandwidth of the actuators. We experimentally validated that these sensors can be used to detect whether the motion of an actuator has been blocked, clearing the way towards simple-tofabricate soft robots that react to their surroundings. Finally, we demonstrate a three-fingered soft robotic gripper with integrated sensors. We conclude that screen-printing is a promising way to integrate curvature sensors into soft robots.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe