Chapter 9: Electric Energy Storage using Ionic Polymer Metal Composites: Towards a Flexible Ionic Polymer Metal Composite Capacitor for Low-power Devices

This chapter presents a mechanism that it is still very little studied as a flexible storage device for electrical energy: the ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) electroactive polymer material. The advantages of such materials compared to conventional storage devices motivated this research, including in terms of flexibility, robustness, and the achieved small size and weight for the same capacitance values. These characteristics appoint IPMC devices as ideal candidates to replace usual capacitors in various applications. This chapter evaluates IPMCs as electrical energy storing devices. Experiments were undertaken with IPMCs that have different thicknesses, surface areas, and diverse solute concentrations. In particular, two specific issues are analyzed: (1) IPMC characterization in terms of electric energy storage (energy density, charging–discharging times, and maintenance time of the electric charge); and (2) analysis of the usage of parallel IPMC topologies to increase device capacitance.