As solar radiation is the most plentiful energy source on earth, thermoelectric energy harvesting emerges as an interesting solution for the Internet of Things (IoTs) in outdoor applications, particularly using semiconductor thermoelectric generators (TEGs) to power IoT devices. However, when a TEG is under solar radiation, the temperature gradient through TEG is minor, meaning that the TEG is useless. A method to keep a significant temperature gradient on a TEG is by using a solar absorber on one side for heating and a heat sink on the other side. In this paper, a compact TEG-based energy harvester that features a solar absorber based on a new class of solid matter, the so-called quasicrystal (QC), is presented. In addition, a water-cooled heat sink to improve the temperature gradient on the TEG is also proposed. The harvester is connected to a power management circuit that can provide an output voltage of 3 V and store up to 1.38 J in a supercapacitor per day. An experimental evaluation was carried out to compare the performance of the proposed QC-based harvester with another similar harvester but with a solar absorber based on conventional black paint. As a result, the QC-based harvester achieved 28.6% more efficient energy generation and achieved full charge of a supercapacitor around two hours earlier. At last, a study on how much the harvested energy can supply power to a sensor node for Smart agriculture during a day while considering a trade-off between the maximum number of measurements and the maximum number of transmission per day is presented.
Keywords: energy harvesting; quasicrystal; solar absorber; thermoelectricity.