Magneto-Mechano-Electric (MME) Energy Harvesting Properties of Piezoelectric Macro-fiber Composite/Ni Magnetoelectric Generator

Abstract

Abstract Asymmetric and symmetric magnetoelectric (ME) laminates structures of piezoelectric macro-fiber composite (MFC)/nickel (Ni) were fabricated and investigated their ME and magneto-mechano-electric (MME) energy harvesting responses to an applied magnetic/mechanical stimulations. Both the structures strongly revealed the dependence of ME voltage coefficient ( α ME ) on applied magnetic field directions with an important feature of a zero-bias field ME response. This is much more beneficial for designing the magnetic field sensors. The fabricated MFC/Ni structures exhibited good energy harvesting response to applied simultaneous magnetic/mechanical vibrations of lab magnetic stirrer. The electric power was successfully harnessed from magneto-mechanical stimulations; the resulting potential and power were up to ~20 V p–p and ~6 μW respectively, which are quite enough power to light a commercial red LED with traditional rectifier circuit and capacitor. Hence, the present MFC/Ni ME generators provide their future feasibility having self-biasing feature for designing the magnetic field sensors as well as for powering small consumer electronic devices and wireless sensor network systems by exploiting mechanical/magnetic stimulations from surrounding.