Electrical Energy Generation from Hot/Cold Air Using Pyroelectric Ceramics

Abstract

Low grade waste thermal energy is a prominent energy source for miniature devices. Present study reports experimental observations on thermal energy harvesting using pyroelectric ceramics (PbZrxTi1-xO3 (PZT-5H)). Appropriate electrical circuit was connected to the pyroelectric material for harvesting thermal energy. Hot/cold air was used to generate the continuous temporal temperature gradient. The temporal temperature variation was maintained as 4oC/sec. In order to study the behaviour of pyroelectric material for energy harvesting, generated charge was stored in capacitor. The maximum energy density was found to be 187.23 μJ/cm3 across 10 μF. Peak value of power output was 0.26 μW across 5MΩ and 4.7 μF.