Powering electronics without depending on batteries is an open research field. Mechanical vibrations prove to be a reliable energy source, but low-frequency broadband vibrations cannot be harvested effectively using linear oscillators. This article discusses an alternative for harvesting such vibrations, with energy harvesters with two stable configurations. The challenges related to nonlinear dynamics are briefly discussed. Different existing designs of bistable energy harvesters are presented and classified, according to their feasibility for miniaturization. A general dynamic model for those designs is described. Finally, an extensive discussion on quantitative measures of evaluating the effectiveness of energy harvesters is accomplished, resulting in the proposition of a new dimensionless metric suited for a broadband analysis.

Bistable vibration energy harvesters: A review

This paper reviews the state of the art in piezoelectric energy harvesting. It presents the basics of piezoelectricity and discusses materials choice. The work places emphasis on material operating modes and device configurations, from resonant to non-resonant devices and also to rotational solutions. The reviewed literature is compared based on power density and bandwidth. Lastly, the question of power conversion is addressed by reviewing various circuit solutions.

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/14/3/4755/pdf

Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Solutions

Piezoelectric energy harvesting has attracted wide attention from researchers especially in the last decade due to its advantages such as high power density, architectural simplicity, and scalability. As a result, the number of studies on piezoelectric energy harvesting published in the last 5 years is more than twice the sum of publications on its electromagnetic and electrostatic counterparts. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the history and current state-of-the art of piezoelectric energy harvesting. A brief theory section presents the basic principles of piezoelectric energy conversion and introduces the most commonly used mechanical architectures. The theory section is followed by a literature survey on piezoelectric energy harvesters, which are classified into three groups: (i) macro- and mesoscale, (ii) MEMS scale, and (iii) nanoscale. The size of a piezoelectric energy harvester affects a variety of parameters such as its weight, fabrication method, achievable power output level, and potential application areas. Consequently, size-based classification provides a reliable and effective basis to study various piezoelectric energy harvesters. The literature survey on each scale group is concluded with a summary, potential application areas, and future directions. In a separate section, the most prominent challenges in piezoelectric energy harvesting and the studies focusing on these challenges are discussed. The conclusion part summarizes the current standing of piezoelectric energy harvesters as possible candidates for various applications and discusses the issues that need to be addressed for realization of practical piezoelectric energy harvesting devices.

Piezoelectric energy harvesting: State-of-the-art and challenges

Ambient vibration energy harvesters: A review on nonlinear techniques for performance enhancement

Energy harvesting from ambient vibrations using piezoelectric effect is a promising alternative solution for powering small electronics such as wireless sensors. A conventional piezoelectric energy...

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A novel two-degrees-of-freedom piezoelectric energy harvester:

A piezoelectric energy converter is presented, whose resonance frequency can be tuned by applying mechanical stress to its structure. The converter consists of a piezo-polymer cantilever beam with two additional thin arms, which are used to apply an axial preload to the tip of the beam. The compressive or tensile prestress applied through the arms leads to a shift of the beam's resonance frequency. Experiments with this structure indicate a high potential: the resonance frequency of a harvester to which a compressive preload was applied could be altered from 380 Hz to 292 Hz. In another experiment, a harvester with stiffened arms was tuned from 440 Hz to 460 Hz by applying a tensile preload. In combination with automatic control of the applied force, this type of structure could be used to enhance the performance of energy harvesters in vibrating environments with occasional shifts of the vibrational frequency.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0960-1317/19/9/094006/pdf

Bidirectional frequency tuning of a piezoelectric energy converter based on a cantilever beam

We present a piezoelectric energy-harvesting system, which is able to self-tune its resonance frequency in an energy-autonomous way, in order to extend its efficient operation over a large frequency range. The system consists of a resonant and frequency-tunable piezoelectric generator and a control unit. In predefined temporal intervals, the control unit analyzes the ambient vibration frequency, decides whether an adjustment of the generator's resonance frequency is necessary or not and delivers the appropriate voltage to a piezoelectric actuator which alters the generator's mechanical stiffness to tune its resonance frequency. The control unit has been optimized to an ultralow power consumption which means that up to 90% of the harvested energy can be fed to the powered electrical load, which could be an embedded system. With frequency-tunable generators, the application range of vibration energy harvesters can be extended to environments with a non-constant vibration frequency, like e.g. the surface of an engine with a varying number of revolutions per minute. Furthermore, the presented system opens the door to off-the-shelf solutions for environments with constant but uncommon vibration frequencies. With the smart tuning algorithm presented in this work, our system is even able to compensate typical weak points of piezoelectrically tunable harvesters, like e.g. hysteresis effects, the temperature dependence of the mechanical stiffness and aging effects.

A smart and self-sufficient frequency tunable vibration energy harvester

The highly exoergic nucleophilic substitution reaction F– + CH3I shows reaction dynamics strikingly different from that of substitution reactions of larger halogen anions. Over a wide range of collision energies, a large fraction of indirect scattering via a long-lived hydrogen-bonded complex is found both in crossed-beam imaging experiments and in direct chemical dynamics simulations. Our measured differential scattering cross sections show large-angle scattering and low product velocities for all collision energies, resulting from efficient transfer of the collision energy to internal energy of the CH3F reaction product. Both findings are in strong contrast to the previously studied substitution reaction of Cl– + CH3I [ Science2008, 319, 183–186] at all but the lowest collision energies, a discrepancy that was not captured in a subsequent study at only a low collision energy [ J. Phys. Chem. Lett.2010, 1, 2747–2752]. Our direct chemical dynamics simulations at the DFT/B97-1 level of theory show that the...

/pdf/indirect-dynamics-in-a-highly-exoergic-substitution-reaction-3oigb7sd8v.pdf

Indirect Dynamics in a Highly Exoergic Substitution Reaction

The association and collisional stabilization of the S(N)2 entrance channel complex [Cl(-)...CH3Cl]* is studied in a low-temperature radiofrequency ion trap. The temperature dependence of the ternary rate coefficient is measured and a much stronger inverse temperature dependence than expected from a simple statistical calculation is found. From these data the lifetime of the transient S(N)2 complex has been derived as a function of temperature. It is suggested that the inverse temperature dependent rates of nonsymmetric S(N)2 reactions are related to the observed inverse temperature dependence of the transient ion-dipole complexes.

Inverse Temperature Dependent Lifetimes of Transient SN2 Ion-Dipole Complexes

Kinematically complete studies of molecular reactions offer an unprecedented level of insight into the dynamics and the different mechanisms by which chemical reactions occur. We have developed a scheme to study ion-molecule reactions by velocity map imaging at very low collision energies. Results for the elementary nucleophilic substitution (SN2) reaction Cl- + CH3I → ClCH3 + I- are presented and compared to high-level direct dynamics trajectory calculations. Furthermore, an improved design of the crossed-beam imaging spectrometer with full three-dimensional measurement capabilities is discussed and characterization measurements using photoionization of NH3 and photodissociation of CH3I are presented.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/194/1/012046/pdf

C Eichhorn

Papers

Bidirectional frequency tuning of a piezoelectric energy converter based on a cantilever beam

A smart and self-sufficient frequency tunable vibration energy harvester

Indirect Dynamics in a Highly Exoergic Substitution Reaction

Inverse Temperature Dependent Lifetimes of Transient SN2 Ion-Dipole Complexes

Kinematically complete chemical reaction dynamics