Energy Harvesting Technologies and Equivalent Electronic Structural Models - Review

Abstract

As worldwide awareness about global climate change spreads, green electronics are becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to diminish pollution. Thus, nowadays energy efficiency is a paramount characteristic in electronics systems to obtain such a goal. Harvesting wasted energy from human activities and world physical phenomena is an alternative to deal with the aforementioned problem. Energy harvesters constitute a feasible solution to harvesting part of the energy being spared. The present research work provides the tools for characterizing, designing and implementing such devices in electronic systems through their equivalent structural models.

Synthesis, Characterization and Development of Energy Harvesting Techniques Incorporated with Antennas: A Review Study

“…Due to the Carnot theorem and the low efficiencies of the material for thermoelectric devices, these decives do not provide enough energy, even when the heat flow is significant. Thus, the best thermoelectric materials are found in semiconductors that are heavily doped [33]. There are three effects through which thermoelectric devices operate:the Peltier effect, the Seebeck effect, and the Thomson effect.…”

“…Electromagnetic harvesters produce energy by means of the electromotive force that a varying magnetic flux induces through a conductive coil according to Faraday's law [33]. A permanent magnet is used to generate the source of magnetic flux (B).…”

“…Electric harvesters [33][34][35][36] are made of variable condensers, the plates of which are electrically separated by air, a vacuum or insulator; the gap between the plates differs because of external mechanical vibration, thereby causing a change in the capacitance. For energy to be harvested here, the plates must be charged.…”

“…In piezoelectric harvesters [33,34,37], mechanical elements such as membranes or beams are bent to enable energy generation. The resultant mechanical vibrations are transferred from tens to hundreds of Hertz at resonance frequencies.…”

“…The filling factor (ff) is the calculation of the quality of a solar cell and is based on the short circuit current I sc on the open-circuit voltage V oc . To attain the ff, the V oc and I sc are separated by the maximum power point [ 33 ]. …”