Journal ArticleDOI
Microfibre–nanowire hybrid structure for energy scavenging
TLDR
This work establishes a methodology for scavenging light-wind energy and body-movement energy using fabrics and presents a simple, low-cost approach that converts low-frequency vibration/friction energy into electricity using piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowires grown radially around textile fibres.Abstract:
Nanodevices don't use much energy, and if the little they do need can be scavenged from vibrations associated with foot steps, heart beats, noises and air flow, a whole range of applications in personal electronics, sensing and defence technologies opens up. Energy gathering of that type requires a technology that works at low frequency range (below 10 Hz), ideally based on soft, flexible materials. A group working at Georgia Institute of Technology has now come up with a system that converts low-frequency vibration/friction energy into electricity using piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowires grown radially around textile fibres. By entangling two fibres and brushing their associated nanowires together, mechanical energy is converted into electricity via a coupled piezoelectric-semiconductor process. This work shows a potential method for creating fabrics which scavenge energy from light winds and body movement. A self-powering nanosystem that harvests its operating energy from the environment is an attractive proposition for sensing, personal electronics and defence technologies1. This is in principle feasible for nanodevices owing to their extremely low power consumption2,3,4,5. Solar, thermal and mechanical (wind, friction, body movement) energies are common and may be scavenged from the environment, but the type of energy source to be chosen has to be decided on the basis of specific applications. Military sensing/surveillance node placement, for example, may involve difficult-to-reach locations, may need to be hidden, and may be in environments that are dusty, rainy, dark and/or in deep forest. In a moving vehicle or aeroplane, harvesting energy from a rotating tyre or wind blowing on the body is a possible choice to power wireless devices implanted in the surface of the vehicle. Nanowire nanogenerators built on hard substrates were demonstrated for harvesting local mechanical energy produced by high-frequency ultrasonic waves6,7. To harvest the energy from vibration or disturbance originating from footsteps, heartbeats, ambient noise and air flow, it is important to explore innovative technologies that work at low frequencies (such as <10 Hz) and that are based on flexible soft materials. Here we present a simple, low-cost approach that converts low-frequency vibration/friction energy into electricity using piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowires grown radially around textile fibres. By entangling two fibres and brushing the nanowires rooted on them with respect to each other, mechanical energy is converted into electricity owing to a coupled piezoelectric–semiconductor process8,9. This work establishes a methodology for scavenging light-wind energy and body-movement energy using fabrics.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Size dependence of dielectric constant in a single pencil-like ZnO nanowire.
TL;DR: A core-shell composite nanowire model in terms of the surface dielectric weakening effect is proposed to explore the origin of the size dependence of dielectrics constant, and the experimental results are well explained.
Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg.
TL;DR: In this paper, the difference between models (I) and (II) when a(x,x) is a log-normal random process was discussed, and it was shown that the difference is mainly characterized by a scaling factor, which is an exponential function of the degree of perturbation.
Journal ArticleDOI
A wire-shaped flexible asymmetric supercapacitor based on carbon fiber coated with a metal oxide and a polymer
Weijie Liu,Nishuang Liu,Yuling Shi,Ying Chen,Congxing Yang,Jiayou Tao,Siliang Wang,Yumei Wang,Jun Su,Luying Li,Yihua Gao +10 more
TL;DR: In this article, a flexible wire-shaped fiber asymmetric supercapacitor (WFASC) was fabricated using these materials as the positive and negative electrodes, respectively, and it exhibited a perfect stability after 5000 cycles at a current density of 30 mA cm−2, meanwhile, it could withstand the bending test and drive a LED under bending states.
Journal ArticleDOI
Local hot charge density regulation: Vibration-free pyroelectric nanogenerator for effectively enhancing catalysis and in-situ surface enhanced Raman scattering monitoring
Chonghui Li,Shicai Xu,Jing Yu,Zhen Li,Weifeng Li,Jihua Wang,Aihua Liu,Baoyuan Man,Shikuan Yang,Chao Zhang +9 more
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper designed a pyroelectric nanogenerator by absorbing optical energy as surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate for in-situ monitoring the complete oxidation reaction from 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP) to 4-nitrothiophenolate (NTP) and the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) intermediates.
Journal ArticleDOI
Energy Harvesting from the Beating Heart by a Mass Imbalance Oscillation Generator
Adrian Zurbuchen,Aloïs Pfenniger,Aloïs Pfenniger,Andreas Stahel,Christian T. Stoeck,Stijn Vandenberghe,Volker M. Koch,Rolf Vogel +7 more
TL;DR: An MRI-based motion analysis of the left ventricle revealed basal regions to be energetically most favorable for the rotating unbalance of the harvester and a mathematical model was developed as a tool for optimizing the device's configuration.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Piezoelectric Nanogenerators Based on Zinc Oxide Nanowire Arrays
TL;DR: This approach has the potential of converting mechanical, vibrational, and/or hydraulic energy into electricity for powering nanodevices.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ballistic carbon nanotube field-effect transistors
TL;DR: It is shown that contacting semiconducting single-walled nanotubes by palladium, a noble metal with high work function and good wetting interactions with nanotube, greatly reduces or eliminates the barriers for transport through the valence band of nanot tubes.
Journal ArticleDOI
Coaxial silicon nanowires as solar cells and nanoelectronic power sources
Bozhi Tian,Xiaolin Zheng,Thomas J. Kempa,Ying Fang,Nanfang Yu,Guihua Yu,Jinlin Huang,Charles M. Lieber +7 more
TL;DR: These coaxial silicon nanowire photovoltaic elements provide a new nanoscale test bed for studies of photoinduced energy/charge transport and artificial photosynthesis, and might find general usage as elements for powering ultralow-power electronics and diverse nanosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Energy scavenging for mobile and wireless electronics
Joseph A. Paradiso,Thad Starner +1 more
TL;DR: A whirlwind survey of energy harvesting can be found in this article, where the authors present a survey of recent advances in energy harvesting, spanning historic and current developments in sensor networks and mobile devices.
Journal ArticleDOI
Direct-current nanogenerator driven by ultrasonic waves
TL;DR: A nanowire nanogenerator that is driven by an ultrasonic wave to produce continuous direct-current output and offers a potential solution for powering nanodevices and nanosystems.