Developing a 3D printable electret material for sensing applications

Omoniyi, O. A. and Tiller, B. and O'Leary, R. and Windmill, James; (2019) Developing a 3D printable electret material for sensing applications. In: 2019 IEEE International Conference on Flexible and Printable Sensors and Systems (FLEPS). IEEE, GBR. ISBN 9781538693049 (https://doi.org/10.1109/FLEPS.2019.8792249)

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Abstract

The introduction of three-dimensional (3D) printing technology has opened up a world of rapid product development in different fields. 3D printing of piezoelectric materials has been growing in popularity in recent years showing increasing promise in the design of miniature sensors for acoustic devices, diagnostics devices, and energy harvesters. In this study, we demonstrate that voided polymer electret material can be printed into 3D structures using Stereolithography (SL) printing technology. A test sample was fabricated by printing a thin membrane of voided polymer electret sandwiched between two base structures. The polymer electret is formed by incorporating dry expanded Expancel microspheres into a photoactive polymer solution of polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA). The average d 33 coefficient of the material were determined as 58pm/V. The results obtained showed the potential of using a voided polymer composite for 3D-printing functional electret based sensing devices.