Energy Harvesting: Converting ambient energy present in the environment into electrical energy

By Fouad Sabry

What Is Energy Harvesting

Energy harvesting is the act of obtaining energy from outside sources, capturing that energy, and storing it for use by tiny, wireless, autonomous devices. Examples of these types of devices include those used in wearable electronics and wireless sensor networks.

How You Will Benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Energy harvesting

Chapter 2: Piezoelectricity

Chapter 3: Nuclear electric rocket

Chapter 4: Pyroelectricity

Chapter 5: Transducer

Chapter 6: Atomic battery

Chapter 7: Electronic component

Chapter 8: Betavoltaic device

Chapter 9: Optoelectric nuclear battery

Chapter 10: Pacesetters

Chapter 11: Micropower

Chapter 12: Thermoelectric generator

Chapter 13: Ultrasonic transducer

Chapter 14: Vibration-powered generator

Chapter 15: Automotive thermoelectric generator

Chapter 16: Thermal copper pillar bump

Chapter 17: Nanogenerator

Chapter 18: Self-powered dynamic systems

Chapter 19: Thermoelectric battery

Chapter 20: Applications of photovoltaics

Chapter 21: Zhong Lin Wang

(II) Answering the public top questions about energy harvesting.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of energy harvesting in many fields.

(IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of energy harvesting' technologies.

Who This Book Is For

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of energy harvesting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Oct 16, 2022

Book preview

Copyright

Energy Harvesting Copyright © 2022 by Fouad Sabry. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover designed by Fouad Sabry.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Bonus

You can send an email to [e-mail] with the subject line Energy Harvesting: Converting ambient energy present in the environment into electrical energy, and you will receive an email which contains the first few chapters of this book.

Fouad Sabry

Visit 1BK website at

www.1BKOfficial.org

Preface

Why did I write this book?

The story of writing this book started on 1989, when I was a student in the Secondary School of Advanced Students.

It is remarkably like the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Schools, which are now available in many advanced countries.

STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. This term is typically used to address an education policy or a curriculum choice in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns and immigration policy.

There was a weekly class in the library, where each student is free to choose any book and read for 1 hour. The objective of the class is to encourage the students to read subjects other than the educational curriculum.

In the library, while I was looking at the books on the shelves, I noticed huge books, total of 5,000 pages in 5 parts. The books name is The Encyclopedia of Technology, which describes everything around us, from absolute zero to semiconductors, almost every technology, at that time, was explained with colorful illustrations and simple words. I started to read the encyclopedia, and of course, I was not able to finish it in the 1-hour weekly class.

So, I convinced my father to buy the encyclopedia. My father bought all the technology tools for me in the beginning of my life, the first computer and the first technology encyclopedia, and both have a great impact on myself and my career.

I have finished the entire encyclopedia in the same summer vacation of this year, and then I started to see how the universe works and to how to apply that knowledge to everyday problems.

My passion to the technology started mor than 30 years ago and still the journey goes on.

This book is part of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies which is my attempt to give the readers the same amazing experience I had when I was in high school, but instead of 20th century technologies, I am more interested in the 21st century emerging technologies, applications, and industry solutions.

The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies will consist of 365 books, each book will be focused on one single emerging technology. You can read the list of emerging technologies and their categorization by industry in the part of Coming Soon, at the end of the book.

365 books to give the readers the chance to increase their knowledge on one single emerging technology every day within the course of one year period.

Introduction

How did I write this book?

In every book of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies, I am trying to get instant, raw search insights, direct from the minds of the people, trying to answer their questions about the emerging technology.

There are 3 billion Google searches every day, and 20% of those have never been seen before. They are like a direct line to the people thoughts.

Sometimes that’s ‘How do I remove paper jam’. Other times, it is the wrenching fears and secret hankerings they would only ever dare share with Google.

In my pursuit to discover an untapped goldmine of content ideas about Energy Harvesting, I use many tools to listen into autocomplete data from search engines like Google, then quickly cranks out every useful phrase and question, the people are asking around the keyword Energy Harvesting.

It is a goldmine of people insight, I can use to create fresh, ultra-useful content, products, and services. The kind people, like you, really want.

People searches are the most important dataset ever collected on the human psyche. Therefore, this book is a live product, and constantly updated by more and more answers for new questions about Energy Harvesting, asked by people, just like you and me, wondering about this new emerging technology and would like to know more about it.

The approach for writing this book is to get a deeper level of understanding of how people search around Energy Harvesting, revealing questions and queries which I would not necessarily think off the top of my head, and answering these questions in super easy and digestible words, and to navigate the book around in a straightforward way.

So, when it comes to writing this book, I have ensured that it is as optimized and targeted as possible. This book purpose is helping the people to further understand and grow their knowledge about Energy Harvesting. I am trying to answer people’s questions as closely as possible and showing a lot more.

It is a fantastic, and beautiful way to explore questions and problems that the people have and answer them directly, and add insight, validation, and creativity to the content of the book – even pitches and proposals. The book uncovers rich, less crowded, and sometimes surprising areas of research demand I would not otherwise reach. There is no doubt that, it is expected to increase the knowledge of the potential readers’ minds, after reading the book using this approach.

I have applied a unique approach to make the content of this book always fresh. This approach depends on listening to the people minds, by using the search listening tools. This approach helped me to:

Meet the readers exactly where they are, so I can create relevant content that strikes a chord and drives more understanding to the topic.

Keep my finger firmly on the pulse, so I can get updates when people talk about this emerging technology in new ways, and monitor trends over time.

Uncover hidden treasures of questions need answers about the emerging technology to discover unexpected insights and hidden niches that boost the relevancy of the content and give it a winning edge.

The building block for writing this book include the following:

(1) I have stopped wasting the time on gutfeel and guesswork about the content wanted by the readers, filled the book content with what the people need and said goodbye to the endless content ideas based on speculations.

(2) I have made solid decisions, and taken fewer risks, to get front row seats to what people want to read and want to know — in real time — and use search data to make bold decisions, about which topics to include and which topics to exclude.

(3) I have streamlined my content production to identify content ideas without manually having to sift through individual opinions to save days and even weeks of time.

It is wonderful to help the people to increase their knowledge in a straightforward way by just answering their questions.

I think the approach of writing of this book is unique as it collates, and tracks the important questions being asked by the readers on search engines.

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is harder than I thought and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. None of this would have been possible without the work completed by prestigious researchers, and I would like to acknowledge their efforts to increase the knowledge of the public about this emerging technology.

Dedication

To the enlightened, the ones who see things differently, and want the world to be better -- they are not fond of the status quo or the existing state. You can disagree with them too much, and you can argue with them even more, but you cannot ignore them, and you cannot underestimate them, because they always change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones or amateur, others see genius and innovators, because the ones who are enlightened enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do, and lead the people to the enlightenment.

Epigraph

Energy harvesting is the act of obtaining energy from outside sources, capturing that energy, and storing it for use by tiny, wireless, autonomous devices. Examples of these types of devices include those used in wearable electronics and wireless sensor networks.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Bonus

Preface

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Epigraph

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Energy harvesting

Chapter 2: Piezoelectricity

Chapter 3: Nuclear electric rocket

Chapter 4: Pyroelectricity

Chapter 5: Transducer

Chapter 6: Thermoelectric cooling

Chapter 7: Atomic battery

Chapter 8: Electronic component

Chapter 9: Optoelectric nuclear battery

Chapter 10: Piezoelectric sensor

Chapter 11: Pacesetters

Chapter 12: Thermoelectric generator

Chapter 13: Thermoelectric generator

Chapter 14: Vibration-powered generator

Chapter 15: Automotive thermoelectric generator

Chapter 16: Thermal copper pillar bump

Chapter 17: Carbon nanotube nanomotor

Chapter 18: Self-powered dynamic systems

Chapter 19: Thermoelectric battery

Chapter 20: Thermopile laser sensor

Chapter 21: Zhong Lin Wang

Epilogue

About the Author

Coming Soon

Appendices: Emerging Technologies in Each Industry

Chapter 1: Energy harvesting

Energy harvesting (EH), also known as power harvesting, energy scavenging, or ambient power, is the process by which energy is derived from external sources (such as solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients, and kinetic energy, also known as ambient energy), captured, and stored for use by small, wireless, autonomous devices, such as those used in wearable electronics and wireless sensor networks. Energy harvesting is also sometimes referred to as energy scavenging.

In most cases, energy harvesters are only capable of supplying a negligible amount of power to low-energy devices. Even if the input fuel to certain large-scale generators costs resources (oil, coal, etc.), the energy source for energy harvesters is present as ambient background energy. For instance, temperature gradients may be caused by the functioning of a combustion engine, and in metropolitan areas, there is a significant quantity of electromagnetic radiation in the atmosphere due to the transmission of radio and television signals.

Crystal radios are one of the first examples of technology that used electricity harvested from the environment in the form of ambient electromagnetic radiation (EMR).

It is possible to illustrate the fundamentals of energy harvesting from ambient EMR using just fundamental components.

Both the military and commercial sectors have shown a significant amount of interest in energy harvesting systems that transform energy from the surrounding environment into electrical energy. Some systems are able to turn motion, such as that produced by ocean waves, into energy, which may then be utilized by oceanographic monitoring instruments to carry out their tasks autonomously. In the future, applications may include devices with high power output (or arrays of such devices), which are installed in distant areas in order to act as dependable power stations for huge systems. Another use for energy harvesting technology is in wearable electronics, where it may be used to power or recharge mobile devices such as telephones, mobile computers, radio communication equipment, and so on. All of these devices need to be very durable so that they can withstand prolonged contact with hazardous conditions, and they need to have a wide dynamic sensitivity range so that they can take advantage of the whole spectrum of wave movements.

Small, self-sufficient sensors, such as those produced using MEMS technology, are able to be powered by energy that can be captured as well. The dependency on battery power restricts the range of applications for these devices, despite the fact that they are often rather compact and use relatively little electricity. Smart sensors could be able to continue functioning forever if they could harvest energy from environmental factors such as vibrations, wind, heat, or light.

The typical power densities that are accessible from energy harvesting devices are largely dependent on the application in question, which in turn has an effect on the size of the generator, as well as the design of the harvesting generator itself.

In general, for gadgets that are powered by motion, typical values are a few µW/cm³ for human body powered applications and hundreds of µW/cm³ for generators powered from machinery.

A capacitor, a super capacitor, or a battery are all examples of places where energy may be stored. When an application requires massive bursts of energy, capacitors are often the component of choice. Batteries are utilized when the gadget has to supply a consistent flow of energy since they leak less energy than other power sources. The sort of battery that is used has an effect on these characteristics of the battery. Although more traditional battery types, such as nickel metal hydride, are still in widespread usage today, lead acid and lithium ion batteries are two of the most prevalent kinds of batteries that are used for this purpose. When compared to batteries, super capacitors have almost endless charge-discharge cycles and may, as a result, run indefinitely. This makes them ideal for use in Internet of Things and wireless sensor devices since they eliminate the need for maintenance.

Independent sensor networks are now drawing a lot of attention in the field of low-power energy harvesting. In these applications, energy is harvested and stored in a capacitor before being boosted and controlled and sent to a second storage capacitor or battery for usage in the microprocessor.

The waterwheel and the windmill are two of the first examples of devices that were used to gather energy. For many decades, people have been looking for different methods to store the energy that comes from heat and vibrations. The need to power sensor networks and mobile devices without the use of batteries is one of the primary motivating forces behind the hunt for innovative energy harvesting systems. The need to find solutions to the problems of climate change and global warming is another factor driving the development of energy collecting technologies.

There are several energy sources that operate on a small scale that, in general, cannot be scaled up to industrial level in order to provide output that is equal to that of solar, wind, or wave power operating on an industrial scale:

Some wristwatches, often known as automatic timepieces, are powered by kinetic energy; in this instance, the energy is generated by the movement of the arm. The winding of its mainspring is caused by the movement of the arm. In a more recent version, which Seiko refers to as Kinetic, the quartz movement is powered not by a battery but rather by the movement of a magnet inside an electromagnetic generator. Because of the motion, there is a rate of change in the flux, which causes some induced emf to be produced by the coils. The idea is connected to Faraday's Law in some way.

Photovoltaics is a way to generate energy by converting solar radiation (both inside and outdoors) into direct current electricity using semiconductors that show the photovoltaic effect. This may be done both outdoors and indoors. Solar panels, each of which has a number of individual cells that contain a photovoltaic material, are used in the process of producing electricity through photovoltaics. Take note that photovoltaics can now be produced on an industrial scale, and that there are big solar farms in existence.

Thermoelectric generators, also known as TEGs, are made up of a connection between two different materials and the existence of a temperature gradient.

Connecting several junctions thermally in parallel while connecting them electrically in series enables the production of large voltage outputs.

Typical performance is 100–300 μV/K per junction.

These may be put to use to harvest mWs of energy from various pieces of industrial machinery, structures, even the body of a human being.

In most cases, heat sinks are used in conjunction with them to achieve the desired temperature gradient.