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    Home > Chemicals Industry > Chemical Technology > Porous thin-film solar engine was successfully developed

    Porous thin-film solar engine was successfully developed

    • Last Update: 2022-10-31
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    On October 25, news came out from Nankai University that Professor Liu Zunfeng and Professor Chen Yongsheng of the School of Chemistry of the University of China and Associate Professor Zhou Xiang of the School of Science of China Pharmaceutical University worked together to develop a self-oscillating artificial muscle driver based on porous flexible polypropylene/carbon black film, and explored the application as an engine to develop a "solar artificial muscle engine", opening up a new path
    for the efficient use of solar energy.

    According to reports, the study is the first to realize the self-oscillation drive under divergent light including sunlight, infrared light and simulated sunlight, and also realize the self-oscillation motion
    under different scattered light irradiation angles.
    This light-responsive self-oscillating driver has excellent oscillation work performance, excellent loading capacity and high energy conversion efficiency, and maintains a continuous oscillation motion without stopping
    when the solvent is constantly supplied.

    The driver is a kind of hardware that generates mechanical deformation under the stimulation of the external environment and converts various environmental energy such as light energy, thermal energy, chemical energy into mechanical energy, thereby generating driving force, and is also an indispensable core component
    in application scenarios such as microelectromechanical systems and optical engines.
    Developing a software driver that spontaneously and continuously achieves energy conversion is one of
    the key difficulties in this field.

    "Self-oscillation is an important characteristic of biological organisms, such as heart beat, cell circulation, etc.
    , which provides a direction
    for designing continuously moving soft robots and autonomous intelligent devices.
    " Liu Zunfeng introduced that at present, scientific research teams have successfully constructed a light-response self-oscillation driver, but the self-oscillation motion and mechanical work under the stimulation of scattered light such as sunlight have never been realized
    .

    The researchers found that the solvent evaporation in the polymer film causes volume shrinkage and light irradiating one side of the film accelerates the solvent evaporation inside the film, resulting in anisotropic volume contraction, resulting in photoflexion
    .
    "Experiments have shown that the introduction of porous structures in thin films can promote the mass transfer of solvent molecules, resulting in faster bending speed and greater bending amplitude
    of thin film materials.
    Therefore, we believe that light-induced solvent evaporation based on porous membranes may be a good candidate to achieve self-oscillation drive
    .
    Liu Zunfeng said
    .

    On the basis of the above research, the joint research team finally designed and developed this self-oscillating drive film
    based on sunlight.
    It is mainly achieved by the reduction of alternating volumes on both sides of the polypropylene/carbon black polymer film caused by the evaporation of photothermal-derived solvents
    .
    Anisotropic solvent evaporation and rapid gradient diffusion in polymer films maintain oscillating bending drive
    under the irradiation of divergent light.

    "This work provides a new design strategy for the 'solar engine', which will facilitate the research and development of self-driving equipment, and will promote the interdisciplinary intersection of other fields, contributing to the rapid development of
    smart devices such as smart materials and flexible devices.
    " Chen Yongsheng said
    .

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