Flow energy harvester with nanoscale, piezoelectric material

The presented transducers are piezoelectric bend transducers which can be excited by a laminar flow to resonance vibration . To achieve an effective energy conversion, flexibility and redundancy of the arrangement, the piezoelectric harvesters are arranged in an array of many small harvesters. The piezoelectric materials used are characterized by small dielectric permittivities and large piezoelectric coefficients. They are also, in contrast to known bulk materials, nano structured. The application of these new materials leads to a significant increase in power density compared with known piezoelectric materials. In contrast to conventional vibration harvesters, the excitation of the harvester do not depend on external oscillations. Instead, the harvester will always oscillate with its own natural frequency. As a result of this induced resonance oscillation and the associated maximum deflection of the bending transducer, maximum electric power will be generated. Due to the arrangement of the harvester in an array, an high degree of flexibility and redundancy in the respective arrangement is ensured. Because of a higher resonant frequency of micro scale harvester, efficiency of power conversion increases.