Regular Article

Acoustic wave-driven oxidized liquid metal-based energy harvester

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Myoungji University, 17058 Yongin, South Korea
² Department of Electrical Engineering, The University of Texas, 75080 Dallas, USA
³ Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Korea Army Academy, 38900 Yeongcheon, South Korea

^* e-mail: jokuksarang64@gmail.com

Received: 9 January 2018
Received in final form: 21 March 2018
Accepted: 2 April 2018
Published online: 8 June 2018

Abstract

We report an oxidized liquid metal droplet-based energy harvester that converts acoustic energy into electrical energy by modulating an electrical double layer that originates from the deformation of the oxidized liquid metal droplet. Gallium-based liquid metal alloy has been developed for various applications owing to the outstanding material properties, such as its high electrical conductivity (metallic property) and unlimited deformability (liquid property). In this study, we demonstrated energy harvesting using an electrical double layer between the acoustic wave-modulated liquid metal droplet and two electrodes. The proposed energy harvester consisted of top and bottom electrodes covered with the dielectric layer and a Gallium-based liquid metal droplet placed between the electrodes. When we applied an external bias voltage and acoustic wave to the proposed device, the contact area between the liquid metal droplet and the electrodes changed, leading to the variation of the capacitance in the electrical double layer and the generation of electrical output current. Using the proposed energy harvester, the maximum output current of 41.2 nA was generated with an applied acoustic wave of 30 Hz. In addition, we studied the relationships between the maximum output current and a variety of factors, such as the size of the liquid metal droplet, the thickness of the hydrophobic layer, and the distance between the top and bottom electrode plates.