Electrostrictive polymers for energy harvesting

A group of researchers working at France's National Institute of Applied Sciences of Lyon (INSA de Lyon) discovered a way to enhance smart materials known as "electrostrictive polymers" to improve their mechanical energy harvesting performance.
In this case, "the electrostrictive polymers are non-piezoelectric in nature," said Yin. "But a pseudo-piezoelectric effect can be induced for electrostrictive polymers when they're exposed to a large applied bias DC electric field. As a result, the pseudo-piezoelectric effect was adopted for the mechanical energy harvesting via electrostrictive polymers."
The group studied the influences on mechanical energy harvesting of a variety of operating conditions, including large applied bias DC electric field, as well as the amplitude and frequency of applied external strain. They discovered that increasing the applied bias provides a way to improve the energy conversion efficiency.

Read more here: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-01/aiop-ehv012516.php 

The article, "Mechanical energy harvesting via a plasticizer-modified electrostrictive polymer" is authored by Xunqian Yin, Mickaël Lallart, Pierre-Jean Cottinet, Daniel Guyomar and Jean-Fabien Capsal. It is published in Applied Physics Letters, January 26, 2016 (DOI: 10.1063/1.4939859) - link: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/108/4/10.1063/1.4939859