A novel strategy to enhance the generating power of ionic polymer metal composites through magnetoelectricity

In this paper, we put forward a method to enhance the output power of ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) through a magnetic field by combining the ion-electronic and magnetoelectric effects. Firstly, we confirmed that the total output voltage of IPMC deformation originates from the vector superposition of ion-electronic and magnetoelectric effects when applied a magnetic field. The open circuit voltage and output power of IPMC were experimentally investigated by adjusting the deflecting frequency and magnetic field intensity. As the frequency and magnetic field intensity increase, the increased voltage and output power caused by the magnetic field show an upward trend. Then, the experimental results were analyzed and verified through the piezoelectric and magnetoelectric theory. The results show that the increased voltage has a linear relationship with the frequency and magnetic field intensity and has nothing to do with the inherent parameters of IPMC itself. Finally, we performed simulation and practical tests to verify the energy harvesting effect of this strategy. During the energy harvesting test of water flow fluctuation, the open circuit voltage was increased by 41.91% and the output energy was increased by 110.03%, which indicates that this strategy has excellent performance in practical applications. By this study, the power generation performance of IPMC was explored and improved through multiple physical mechanisms.