A cm scale electret-based electrostatic wind turbine for low-speed energy harvesting applications

TLDR

The study introduces a compact axial turbine energy harvester that uses an electret‑based electrostatic converter to capture airflow power. The device operates by rotating a 4‑blade axial turbine (40 mm diameter, 10 mm depth) that induces periodic capacitance changes between a stator and rotor, which are converted to electricity through Teflon electrets charged at –1400 V. Testing shows output powers of 90 µW at 1.5 m s⁻¹ and 1.8 mW at 10 m s⁻¹, achieving a power coefficient of 5.8 % and the lowest cut‑in speed (1.5 m s⁻¹) reported for similar devices.

Abstract

This paper presents a small-scale airflow energy harvester built on an axial turbine architecture and exploiting an electret-based electrostatic converter. When the airflow velocity is high enough, the windmill starts rotating and creates a periodic relative motion between a stator and a rotor which induces variations of capacitance. These ones are directly converted into electricity thanks to the use of Teflon electrets charged at −1400 V which polarize the variable capacitors. We focus our study on a 4-blade axial turbine with a diameter of D = 40 mm, a depth of W = 10 mm, for a total volume of 12.6 cm3. This windmill has been tested with various blade angles and different types of electrostatic converters and output powers up to 90 μW at 1.5 m s−1 (7.5 μW cm−3) and 1.8 mW at 10 m s−1 (111 μW cm−3) have been obtained so far. The coefficient of power reaches Cp = 5.8% and among the small-scale airflow energy harvesters previously reported, this one has the lowest cut-in speed (1.5 m s−1).