Abstract
Large amounts of low-grade heat are emitted by various industries and exhausted into the environment. This heat energy can be used as a free source for pyroelectric power generation. A three-dimensional pattern helps to improve the temperature variation rates in pyroelectric elements by means of lateral temperature gradients induced on the sidewalls of the responsive elements. A novel method using sandblast etching is successfully applied in fabricating the complex pattern of a vortex-like electrode. Both experiment and simulation show that the proposed design of the vortex-like electrode improved the electrical output of the pyroelectric cells and enhanced the efficiency of pyroelectric harvesting converters. A three-dimensional finite element model is generated by commercial software for solving the transient temperature fields and exploring the temperature variation rate in the PZT pyroelectric cells with various designs. The vortex-like type has a larger temperature variation rate than the fully covered type, by about 53.9%.The measured electrical output of the vortex-like electrode exhibits an obvious increase in the generated charge and the measured current, as compared to the fully covered electrode, by of about 47.1% and 53.1%, respectively.
Highlights
Waste heat refers to heat produced by lights, traffic vehicles, machines, electrical equipment and industrial processes; it has no useful application
While trenching the PZT sheets to produce deeper trenches effectively enhanced the temperature variation rate in a thicker PZT pyroelectric cell as a result of lateral temperature gradients induced by the trenched electrode, a complex pattern fitting various distributions, densities, magnitudes and intensities of waste heat sources was difficult to fabricate using a precision dicing saw [12]
The present study investigated the use of sandblast etching to produce three-dimensional complex patterns in PZT pyroelectric cells to enhance the performance of pyroelectric harvesting converters
Summary
Waste heat refers to heat produced by lights, traffic vehicles, machines, electrical equipment and industrial processes; it has no useful application. By adopting the concepts of both the mesh electrode and the three-dimensional pattern, the PZT sheet is further etched to produce deeper cavities and a smaller electrode width This induces lateral temperature gradients on the sidewalls of cavities, thereby enhancing the temperature variation rate under homogeneous heat irradiation, PZT etchant with a low etching rate is unsuitable for creating the deeper cavities in the PZT sheet [11]. While trenching the PZT sheets to produce deeper trenches effectively enhanced the temperature variation rate in a thicker PZT pyroelectric cell as a result of lateral temperature gradients induced by the trenched electrode, a complex pattern fitting various distributions, densities, magnitudes and intensities of waste heat sources was difficult to fabricate using a precision dicing saw [12]. In other words, increasing the heated gas within the PZT sheets would improve the heat absorption from the heated gas and enhance the temperature variation rate
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