An ever-increasing energy demand and environmental problems associated with exhaustible fossil fuels have led to the search for an alternative energy. In this context, biodiesel has attracted attention worldwide as an alternative to fossil fuel.

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In this work, we report on the optimization of a micro power unit. The power unit is comprised of an electromagnetic micro power generator (MPG), power conditioning circuits, and an energy storage component. First, we minimize the mechanical impedance of the MPG by optimizing the size of the seismic mass and support beam as well as re-designing the seismic mass. Second, we investigate the use of off-the-shelf dc-dc converters and custom voltage multipliers and transformers to rectify and step-up the output voltage. We find that transformers were best suited for electromagnetic MPG delivering a rectification efficiency of 75%.

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