Abstract
Generating electrical power from low frequency vibration to power portable devices is a challenge that potentially can be met by nonresonant electrostatic energy harvesters. We propose a generator employing a conductive droplet sliding on a microfabricated electret film which is sputtered onto an interdigital electrode and charged already during deposition. Droplet motion causes a capacitance variation that is used to generate electric power. A prototype of the fluidic energy harvester demonstrated a peak output power at 0.18 µW with a single droplet having a diameter of 1.2 mm and sliding on a 2 -µm thick electret film.
Highlights
Harvesting energy from the environment and converting to electric energy has been a hot spot in both scientific and engineering fields since last two decades [1]
It is noted that the maximum values occur at the positions where the droplet is right in the middle of the two adjacent fingers while the minimums are corresponding to the positions where the droplet are sitting right on the top of one finger
With microfabrication compatibility and cost-effectiveness taken into consideration, the coplanar interdigital capacitance has shown promising capability of non-intrusive transduction and sensing for microfluidics
Summary
Harvesting energy from the environment and converting to electric energy has been a hot spot in both scientific and engineering fields since last two decades [1]. A fluidic electrostatic energy harvester utilizing interdigital electrodes (IDEs) and a thin, charged dielectric film was demonstrated in our previous work [8]. It operates on a rolling conductive droplet causing variations in the capacitance and open-circuit potential of the device’s electrical port, and thereby converting mechanical energy into electrical energy when a load is connected. Due to lack of available experimental data on the distribution of fixed charges in the film and on the possible deformation of the droplet in the inhomogeneous electric field, as well as the serious obstacles to analytical treatment of the electrostatics in the complicated structure, essential details that would be useful for further developments are not known. A question rises naturally: what is the exact description of microfluidics?
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