1-mW Vibration Energy Harvester Based on a Cantilever with Printed Polymer Multilayers

Abstract

Energy harvesters are required for autonomous sensors. The field is still missing a low-cost technology that would provide enough power for tangible low-frequency use cases, although triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) have emerged as a new energy technology. Standard vibration energy harvesters (VEHs) are based either on bulky electromagnetic systems or stiff lead-based piezo-ceramics. Those systems are rarely compatible with large deformations that occur at low frequency such as body movements. Here, we show that a stack of 10 thin layers of poly(vinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene) screen printed on a polymer substrate can harvest up to 0.97 mW at 33 Hz with an area of only 2.4 cm 2 . These results are obtained with a lead-free, cost-effective, and scalable technique at 150°C, competing with TENG solutions. This VEH can work for at least 10 7 cycles while harvesting sufficient energy to feed a microcontroller that communicate wirelessly with a mobile phone. Screen-printed multilayer of P(VDF-TrFE) for vibrating energy harvesting 1 mW harvested power at 33 Hz and 2.4 cm 2 Lead-free, cost-effective, and scalable technique at 150°C Godard et al. show that 2.4 cm 2 of screen-printed multilayers of a piezoelectric polymer, P(VDF-TrFE), can harvest up to 1 mW at 33 Hz. They demonstrate that this is sufficient for an autonomous sensor to communicate with a mobile phone independently of any other energy source.