FUZZY SIMULATION, SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION AND VOLTAGE MEASUREMENTS OF ZINC OXIDE NANO-RODS BASED NANOGENERATORS

Abstract

Harvesting the mechanical energy from environment sources such as wavy motion of plant leaves and branches could power up the low power consumption electrical devices and sensors. Such low power energy harvesting devices will replace the batteries especially at the remote areas where the replacement of batteries is very expensive or sometimes impossible. An environment friendly nano generator using ZnO nanorods can be built easily and useful for energy generation. Although, performance of harvesting ZnO piezoelectric nanorods have gradually improved even then their power is insufficient for real devices. However, the integration of nanogenerator devices for energy harvesting into a single power source is necessary. Therefore, its simulation using MATLAB fuzzy logic and fabrication is presented in this paper with a very low error of 0.24 % which shows its excellence in performance by presenting new technique of energy generation with plant leave movement. The fabricated ZnO nano-wires on aluminum substrate connected in series and parallel were also tested and the results are closely in contrast to the stimulated results. The nano-generator shows an enhanced voltage when connected in series and a high current value when connected in parallel. The nano-generator give a voltage of 0.695 mV when connected in series and a current density of 25 nA cm-2when connected in parallel.