Seminars

Ray Baughman
The University of Texas at Dallas

Electrochemical Artificial Muscle Yarns and Textiles that Harvest and Store Environmentally Available Energies
Mechanical energy harvesters are needed for such diverse applications as self-powered wireless sensors, structural and human health monitoring systems, and cheaply harvesting energy from ocean waves. The here reported nanofiber yarn harvesters can electrochemically convert tensile or torsional mechanical energy into electrical energy. Stretching coiled yarns generated 250 W/kg of peak electrical power when cycled up to 30 Hz, and up to 41.2 J/kg of electrical energy per mechanical cycle, when normalized to the weight of the harvester yarn. Unlike for other harvesters, torsional rotation produces both tensile and torsional energy harvesting and no bias voltage is required, even when electrochemically operating in salt water. Since homochiral and heterochiral coiled harvester yarns provide oppositely directed potential changes when stretched, both contribute to output power in a dual-electrode yarn. These energy harvesters were used in the ocean to harvest wave energy, combined with thermally-driven artificial muscles to convert temperature fluctuations to electrical energy, sewn into textiles for use as self-powered respiration sensors, and used to power a LED and to charge a storage capacitor. The development of “piezoelectrochemical spectroscopy” and insights into the hierarchical origins of capacitance increased fundamental understanding. When run in the reverse direction, these muscle types can provide powerful artificial muscles, and the same fibers used as harvesters and muscles can be used to store electrical energy.

About Dr. Baughman:
Ray Baughman became the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry and Director of the NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas in Dallas in August 2001, after 31 years in industry. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, Academia Europaea, and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts; a foreign member of the European Academy of Sciences; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science; an Academician of The Russian Academy of Natural Sciences; and is on editorial or advisory boards of Science and other journals. Ray has 101 issued US patents, over 454 refereed publications, over 69,400 citations, and a Google Scholar H-index of 114.