Long-Term Stability of Ferroelectret Energy Harvesters

Muhammed Kayaharman; Taylan Das; Gregory Seviora; Resul Saritas; Eihab Abdel-Rahman; Mustafa Yavuz

doi:10.3390/ma13010042

Long-Term Stability of Ferroelectret Energy Harvesters

Materials (Basel). 2019 Dec 20;13(1):42. doi: 10.3390/ma13010042.

Authors

Muhammed Kayaharman¹, Taylan Das^{2

3}, Gregory Seviora², Resul Saritas⁴, Eihab Abdel-Rahman⁴, Mustafa Yavuz²

Affiliations

¹ Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada.
² Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Department, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada.
³ Mechanical Engineering Department, Kirikkale University, 71450 Kirikkale, Turkey.
⁴ Systems Design Engineering Department, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada.

Abstract

Cellular polypropylene (PP) has been recently used in energy harvesting applications. In this work, we investigate its viability and long-term stability under various operating conditions. Specifically, the effect of constant stress and stress cycling on output power and long-term stability of ferroelectret energy harvesters is analyzed. Our findings show that after 112 days constant stress significantly increases the piezoelectric charge constant d 33 and output power from 0.51 μW for a stress-free harvester to 2.71 μW. It also increases the harvester center frequency from 450 to 700 Hz and decreases its optimal resistance from 7 to 5.5 M Ω .

Keywords: energy harvesters; ferroelectret; piezoelectric.