Wind-driven pyroelectric energy harvesting device

Abstract

Pyroelectric materials have recently received attention for harvesting waste heat owing to their potential to convert temperature fluctuations into useful electrical energy. One of the main challenges in designing pyroelectric energy harvesters is to provide a means to induce a temporal heat variation in a pyroelectric material autonomously from a steady heat source. To address this issue, we propose a wind-driven pyroelectric energy harvester, in which a propeller is set in rotational motion by an incoming wind stream. The speed of the propeller's shaft is reduced by a gearbox to drive a slider-crank mechanism, in which a pyroelectric material is placed on the slider. Thermal cycling is obtained as the reciprocating slider moves the pyroelectric material across alternative hot and cold zones created by a stationary heat lamp and ambient temperature, respectively.

A hybrid strain and thermal energy harvester based on an infra-red sensitive Er3+ modified poly(vinylidene fluoride) ferroelectret structure

“…This potential difference can be discharged across an external load when the surface electrodes of the FTNG are interconnected via external load. Under short circuit conditions, the pyroelectric current is given by where, A is surface area (m 2 ) and is the rate of temperature change (Ks −1 ) 1 , 44 , 47 – 50 . Thus, the pyroelectric co-efficient of the FTNG is 33 µCm −2 K −1 .…”

Energy Harvesting Research: The Road from Single Source to Multisource

“…One of the possibilities where pyroelectric energy harvesters can be used is harvesting the heat in solar, infrared, or other environmental radiations . By properly designing the configuration, wind energy can also be harvested via the pyroelectric effect . A flexible polymer‐on‐polymer structure, i.e., PVDF as the pyroelectric material and poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiphene) (PEDOT) as the electrode, was published for harvesting the waste heat from human inhalation and exhalation .…”

Pyroelectric performance of BaTi1‐xSnxO3 ceramics

“…Therefore, output electric signal from such system can be cumulative effect of primary and secondary pyroelectric effects. Moreover, such systems are closer to real‐time applications and used to investigate energy harvesting possibilities in pyroelectric materials by a number of researchers, hence used in present work. Figure B shows the temperature variation near the surface of sample vs time plot for a constant frequency (heating/cooling cycles).…”