Screen printing is a known method to produce disposable and low-cost sensors. Depending on the application such as food analysis, environmental health monitoring, disease detection and toxin detection, screen-printed electrodes can be fabricated in a variety of sizes and shapes. Modification of the electrode's material and geometrical dimension may be done to produce effective screen-printed three-electrodes system. Thus, the effects of varying the working electrode (WE) area in radius of 0.9 mm to 2 mm, gap spacing between electrodes ranging from 0.5 mm to 1.6 mm, and the width of the counter electrode in range of 0.7 to 1.3 mm on sensor's performance was investigated in this study through COMSOL simulation. It was found that the modification of the working electrode radius and the gap between the electrodes has the most significant effect on sensor's performance, while modifying the width of the counter electrode (CE) shows no significant effect. Sensors with 0.9 mm radius or 2.54 mm² WE area and 0.5 mm gap spacing has shown the optimum performance with 0.026 A/m² current density which is contributed by 0.044 pF capacitance value. As a conclusion, regardless of the width of counter electrodes, a smaller gap between electrodes and a smaller working area would lead to optimal performance of a screenprinted three-electrode sensor system.

No abstract

No abstract

Aims: Recent advancements in sensing technology and wireless communications have accelerated the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) which promote the usage of wearable sensors. An emerging trend is to develop self-sustainable wearable devices, thus eliminating the necessity of the user to carry bulky batteries. In this work, the development of a flexible piezoelectric energy harvester that is capable of harvesting energy from low frequency vibrations is presented. The target application of this energy harvester is for usage in smart shoes. Objectives: The objectives of this research is to design, fabricate and test an energy harvester on PET substrate using Aluminum Zinc Oxide as its piezoelectric layer. Methods: The energy harvester was designed as a cantilever structure using PET/AZO/Ag layers in d33 mode which can generate large output voltages with small displacements. The electrodes were designed as an interdigitated structure in which two significant design parameters were chosen, namely the effect of gap between electrodes, g and number of interdigital electrodes (IDE) pairs, N to the output voltage and resonant frequency. Results: The sputtered AZO on PET showed c-axis orientation at 002 peak with 2 values of 34.45° which indicates piezoelectric behaviour. The silver IDE pairs were screen-printed on the AZO thin film. Functionality of the device as an energy harvester was demonstrated by testing it using a shaker. The energy harvester was capable of generating 0.867 Vrms output voltage when actuated at 49.6 Hz vibrations. Conclusion: This indicates that the AZO thin films with printed silver electrodes can be used as flexible, d33 energy harvesters.

No abstract