Compact Tubular Dielectric Elastomer Pump for Indoor Plants

ABSTRACT Recently, indoor plants (IP) for air quality improvement have become an interesting topic because of the growing trend of “work from home.” To ensure IP grows well, a reliable pumping device is required to keep an efficient irrigation. There are many reliable pumps in the marketplace. However, the currently available pumps can cause a high‐level noise that creates discomfort for people in indoor applications. To overcome this problem, we designed and created a mountable rolled dielectric elastomer pump (MRDEP). MRDEP, comprised of silicone films and multi‐walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) based electrodes, can operate silently. MRDEP is completely soft and can be directly mounted on a piping system. Our strategy to realize MRDEP is to use dry stacking methods and fabricate a multilayer dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA). Then, to increase the performance, we perform a pre‐straining process in one direction before rolling the multilayer DEA. After the pre‐straining process, we roll the MRDEP directly onto the silicone pipe. Our study finds that the MRDEP has superior performance at 40 Hz and 4 kV operation. We also confirm that the MRDEP outperforms previously reported devices in terms of pressure and flow rate per volume. We expect MRDEP will advance smart watering systems for IP.