Modeling of a honeycomb-shaped pyroelectric energy harvester for human body heat harvesting

Abstract

Pyroelectric conversion can be used for thermal energy harvesting in lieu of thermoelectric conversion. In the case of human body energy harvesting, the general pyroelectric energy harvester (PEH) cannot be applied because the weak body heat can hardly penetrate the protecting layer to reach the pyroelectric material. This paper presents the realization of a honeycomb-shaped PEH (H-PEH) and a modeling method of the electrode and hole areas. The fabricated H-PEH successfully generated electrical energy using human body heat. The H-PEH with a 1:1.5 electrode-and-hole area ratio showed the best performance. To verify the human energy harvesting, we evaluated the characteristics of conventional PEH and H-PEH when body heat was used as a heat source. The maximum power of the H-PEH was 0.06 and 0.16 μW at wind velocities of 2 and 4 m s −1 , respectively. These output power values of the H-PEH were 200 and 224% larger than those of the PEH, respectively, according to the wind velocity.

Energy Harvesting Research: The Road from Single Source to Multisource

“…Harvesting the waste heat in hot lubricating oil, which is widely found in manufacturing industries, has been proposed. Modeling and characterization works have carried out for harvesting human body heat for wearable electronics . Oscillating heat pipes can be another waste heat source for pyroelectric energy harvesting .…”

Harvesting Energy from Human Activity: Ferroelectric Energy Harvesters for Portable, Implantable, and Biomedical Electronics

“…As the pyroelectric effect and materials have been summarized in previous Reviews, here we will focus on pyroelectric thermal energy harvesting from human‐activity‐related energy and human‐body‐surrounding heat for implantable and biomedical applications. Complementary to the thermoelectric effect, which excels at extracting thermal energy from a stable high‐gradient temperature difference, the pyroelectric effect specializes in converting thermal energy with a low gradient of constantly changing temperature into electric power, the features of which can be used for human‐activity‐related thermal energy harvesting . Generally, pyroelectric materials can be operated with two different modes: spontaneous mode and Olsen cycle .…”

Characterization and Modeling of Meshed Electrodes on Free Standing Polyvilylidene Difluoride (PVDF) Films for Enhanced Pyroelectric Energy Harvesting

“…According to equation 4, the energy trade off from a fixed geometry energy harvesting systems can be improved by maximising the potential difference in equation ( 1), assuming a constant capacitance. For pyroelectric applications, the use of symmetrical meshed electrodes [4] or non-symmetrical woven electrodes [5] has the potential to improve any thermal conduction, [6], convection and radiation [7] into the ferroelectric and therefore can enhance the available change in temperature ΔT, or rate of change in temperature (ΔT/Δt). When subjected to thermal radiation, a fully covered metallic electrode acts to reflect the energy.…”