SMALL-SCALE ENERGY HARVESTING Edited by Mickaël Lallart SMALL-SCALE ENERGY HARVESTING Edited by Mickaël Lallart Small-Scale Energy Harvesting http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/3078 Edited by Mickaël Lallart Contributors Kai Ren, Yong X. Gan, Chris Gould, Noel Shammas, Hongying Zhu, Sébastien Pruvost, Pierre-Jean Cottinet, Daniel Guyomar, Igor L. Baginsky, Edward G. Kostsov, S. Boisseau, G. Despesse, B. Ahmed Seddik, Wen Jong Wu, Bor Shiun Lee, Yu-Jen Wang, Sheng-Chih Shen, Chung-De Chen, Mickaël Lallart, Pierre-Jean Cottinet, Jean-Fabien Capsal, Laurent Lebrun, Daniel Guyomar, Adam Wickenheiser, B. Ahmed Seddik, G. Despesse, S. Boisseau, E. Defay, Cuong Phu Le, Einar Halvorsen, Ji-Tzuoh Lin, Barclay Lee, Bruce William Alphenaar, Marcus Neubauer, Jens Twiefel, Henrik Westermann, Jörg Wallaschek, Yuan-Ping Liu, Dejan Vasic Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2012 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Notice Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Sandra Bakic Typesetting InTech Prepress, Novi Sad Cover InTech Design Team First published October, 2012 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechopen.com Small-Scale Energy Harvesting, Edited by Mickaël Lallart p. cm. ISBN 978-953-51-0826-9 Contents Preface IX Section 1 Photonic 1 Chapter 1 Advances in Photoelectrochemical Fuel Cell Research 3 Kai Ren and Yong X. Gan Section 2 Thermal 27 Chapter 2 Three Dimensional TCAD Simulation of a Thermoelectric Module Suitable for Use in a Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting System 29 Chris Gould and Noel Shammas Chapter 3 Thermal Energy Harvesting Using Fluorinated Terpolymers 43 Hongying Zhu, Sébastien Pruvost, Pierre-Jean Cottinet and Daniel Guyomar Section 3 Vibrations: Conversion Mechanisms 59 Chapter 4 High Energy Density Capacitance Microgenerators 61 Igor L. Baginsky and Edward G. Kostsov Chapter 5 Electrostatic Conversion for Vibration Energy Harvesting 91 S. Boisseau, G. Despesse and B. Ahmed Seddik Chapter 6 Piezoelectric MEMS Power Generators for Vibration Energy Harvesting 135 Wen Jong Wu and Bor Shiun Lee Chapter 7 Wideband Electromagnetic Energy Harvesting from a Rotating Wheel 161 Yu-Jen Wang, Sheng-Chih Shen and Chung-De Chen VI Contents Chapter 8 Electrostrictive Polymers for Vibration Energy Harvesting 183 Mickaël Lallart, Pierre-Jean Cottinet, Jean-Fabien Capsal, Laurent Lebrun and Daniel Guyomar Section 4 Vibrations: Techniques 209 Chapter 9 Analysis of Energy Harvesting Using Frequency Up-Conversion by Analytic Approximations 211 Adam Wickenheiser Chapter 10 Strategies for Wideband Mechanical Energy Harvester 235 B. Ahmed Seddik, G. Despesse, S. Boisseau and E. Defay Chapter 11 Microscale Energy Harvesters with Nonlinearities Due to Internal Impacts 265 Cuong Phu Le and Einar Halvorsen Chapter 12 Non-Linear Energy Harvesting with Random Noise and Multiple Harmonics 283 Ji-Tzuoh Lin, Barclay Lee and Bruce William Alphenaar Chapter 13 Modeling Aspects of Nonlinear Energy Harvesting for Increased Bandwidth 303 Marcus Neubauer, Jens Twiefel, Henrik Westermann and Jörg Wallaschek Chapter 14 Self-Powered Electronics for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Devices 327 Yuan-Ping Liu and Dejan Vasic Preface The proliferation of low-power and ultralow-power electronics has enabled a rapid growth of autonomous devices that ranges from consumer electronics and nomad devices to autonomous sensors and sensor networks used in industrial and military environments. Hence, a wide range of application domains has been impacted by such technologies (aeronautic, civil engineering, biomedical engineering, home automation, etc.). Although batteries have initially promoted the spreading of these autonomous devices thanks to their relatively high energy capacity, they have become a break in the development of such systems especially when dealing with “left-behind” (or “place and forget”) sensors or when these apparatus are deployed in large number (e.g., autonomous electrical switches). The main issues raised by primary batteries lie in the associated maintenance problems for replacement caused by their limited lifespan as well as environmental concerns as their recycling process is quite delicate. Therefore, an alternative solution has to be found. Over the last decade, both the scientific and industrial communities have been interested in using ambient energy sources for supplying these low-power electronic systems, leading to the concept of “energy harvesting” or “energy scavenging”, where the power is directly delivered by microgenerators that are able to convert ambient energy into electrical energy. Many sources from the near environment of the device can be found, for instance vibrations, electromagnetic radiations, photonic radiations, temperature gradients, heat fluctuations, and so on, and many conversion effects can be used with each of the above mentioned sources (piezoelectricity, electromagnetism, electrostatic, electrostriction, pyroelectricity, Seebeck effect…). However, dimension constraints are a challenging concern and the design of efficient microgenerators able to efficiently convert available energy from their environment and to provide enough power to the circuit is still an open issue. Hence, the purpose of this book is to provide an up-to-date view of latest research advances in the design of efficient small-scale energy harvesters through contributions of internationally recognized researchers. The book covers the physics of the energy conversion, the elaboration of electroactive materials and their application to the conception of a complete microgenerator, and is organized according to the input energy source. Therefore, Section 1 covers the principles and application of energy harvesting from photonic through the use of fuel cells. Section 2 deals with thermal X Preface energy harvesting, using either thermoelectric materials (Chapter 2) or dielectric approach featuring electroactive polymers (Chapter 3). Finally, Section 3 exposes the use of vibrations as energy input of the harvester. This section is subdivided into two subsections, the first one being devoted to the available conversion mechanisms for converting mechanical energy into electricity, using electrostatic coupling (Chapters 4- 5), piezoelectricity (Chapter 6), electromagnetism (Chapter 7) or electrostriction (Chapter 8). The second part of this section aims at presenting new techniques for efficiently harvesting mechanical energy, either by enlarging and/or matching the frequency band (Chapter 9-13) or by artificially increasing the coupling between the mechanical and electrical domains (Chapter 14), through the use of nonlinear approaches. I sincerely hope you will find this book as enjoyable to read as it was to edit, and that it will help your research and/or give new ideas in the wide field of energy harvesting. Finally, I would like to take the opportunity of writing this preface to thank all the authors for their high quality contributions, as well as the InTech publishing team (and especially the book manager, Ms. Silvia Vlase) for their outstanding support. Dr. Mickaël Lallart Laboratoire de Génie Electrique et Ferroélectricité, LGEF, INSA Lyon, France [...]... photoanode if the light energy is larger than the material energy band gap The photoanode generates electrons (e-) and holes (h+) At the anode, production of oxygen happens Hydrogen generates at the water/cathode interface The reactions are shown as follows (Chang C et al., 2012): Light energy: 2hv→2h+ + 2 e- (1) At anode: 2 h+ + H2O → 1/2 O2 + 2H+ (2) 4 Small-Scale Energy Harvesting At cathode: 2... min 18 Small-Scale Energy Harvesting Figure 13 Annealing treatment of TiO2 nanotubes (a) with Ti substrate, (b) free standing nanotubes (Fang D et al., 2011) 7.3.3 Doping There are two main limitations of pure TiO2 nanotubes 1 2 Pure TiO2 can only absorb UV light of wavelength shorter than 400 nm because the band gap of TiO2 is 3.2 eV, which means that pure TiO2 can only utilize 6% solar energy The... Hueppe M, Schumk P, Filling of TiO2 Nanotubes by self-Doping and Electrodeposition Advanced Materials 2007;19;3027-3031 24 Small-Scale Energy Harvesting Mahajan V, Mohapatra S, Misra M Stability of TiO2 nanotube arrays in photoelectrochemical studies International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 2008; 33; 53695374 Malwadkar SS, Gholap RS, Awate SV, Korake PV, Chaskar MG, Gupta NM Physicochemical, photo-catalytic... efficiency is 0.91% Figure 5 SEM images of CuO photo cathodes prepared under different conditions: (a) 450 °C, 1 h, (b) 450 °C, 3 h, (c) 600 °C, 1 h, (d) 600 °C, 3 h (Chang C et al., 2011) 10 Small-Scale Energy Harvesting 6 Terminologies associated with the photo fuel cells 6.1 Optical absorption coefficient for band gap determination The optical absorption coefficient, α, is related to the wavelength,... T et al., in 1998 During the process, titania nanopowders are placed in alkaline aqueous solutions held in high pressure steel vessels The temperate should be between 50-180 °C The process 12 Small-Scale Energy Harvesting continues for 10 to 20 hours Some post treatment can be applied, for example, washing with acid or alkaline solutions for 10 hours, drying at 80 °C and annealing at 500 °C The reaction... the self-organized TiO2 nanotubes were obtained (Fig 9b) Figure 8 Morphology of self-organized anodic TiO2 nanotubes formed at different temperature and voltage levels (Liu H et al., 2011) 14 Small-Scale Energy Harvesting Figure 9 (a) Sketches for electrochemical oxidation of Ti (b) effectof voltage level on the morphology of TiO2 (Zeng X et al., 2011) Before 2005, all of these researches were exclusively... in HF electrolytes The maximum length is several micron meters using NaF and NH4F electrolytes Figure 11 Self-organization of TiO2 nanotubes in F- containing solutions (Gan Y et al., 2011) 16 Small-Scale Energy Harvesting The mechanism of TiO2 growth can be shown in Fig 11 TiO2 grows on the Ti substrate gradually With the TiO2 film being thicker and thicker, TiO2 has the function of a protecting film... On the right side, there is a highly transparent and corrosion-resistant film to keep the high efficiency This new design can connect single cells in series, which can generate large power 6 Small-Scale Energy Harvesting Figure 4 Photoelectrode designs (Miller EL et al., 2003) TiO2 is an effective photocatalysis (PC) It is often used as the anode of PFC (Gratzel M et al., 2001) The reaction of TiO2... TiO2 is 3.2 eV, which means that pure TiO2 can only utilize 6% solar energy The visible light has the energy band gaps from 1.8 eV to 3.1 eV High electrical resistance of pure TiO2 at the room temperature results in very low electron transfer rate This causes electric energy loss The converted heat energy dissipates into ambient At 20 °C, TiO2 is not a conductor Only when the temperature rises to 400... nitrogen co-doping method by adding 5 mg polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and 20 mg urea Then calcination was performed in nitrogen at 600 °C The photocurrent density is 3 times, 2 times, and 1.2 times 20 Small-Scale Energy Harvesting compared with the non-doped, C-doped and N-doped TiO2 nanotubes under solar light and 0.2 V bias-potential combined excitation He HC et al., (2011), doped Pt-Ni into NTNs using pulsed . SMALL-SCALE ENERGY HARVESTING Edited by Mickaël Lallart SMALL-SCALE ENERGY HARVESTING Edited by Mickaël Lallart Small-Scale Energy. Suitable for Use in a Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting System 29 Chris Gould and Noel Shammas Chapter 3 Thermal Energy Harvesting Using Fluorinated Terpolymers