Droplet Energy Generator for Environmental Mechanical Energy Harvesting

Opportunity  

Ambient intelligence aims to seamlessly integrate interactive artifacts into our environments, enhancing everyday life. Despite advancements in functionalised terminal products, a significant challenge remains: powering these electronics in a decentralised and widespread manner. To address this, it is crucial to develop energy harvesters that are easy to fabricate, cost-effective and highly efficient. These energy harvesters can complement existing power strategies for ambient intelligent networks.  

Technology  

This invention presents a high efficiency DENG using simple protocols and recycled waste materials for efficient environmental energy harvesting from water droplets. DENG’s straightforward configuration consists of a recycled DVD as one electrode layer (G-Al electrode), a composite layer and a piece of plain aluminium foil (Al electrode) as the other electrode. The excellent electrical performance of DENG results from the synergistic effects of surface plasmon excitation and thermal charges injection.  

Figure 1: Overview of high-efficiency droplet energy nanogenerator (DENG) applying on diverse scenarios to collect energy from falling droplets. 

Applications & Advantages  

Main application areas include environmental energy harvesting, powering ambient intelligence systems and sustainable energy solutions. 

Advantages: 

• Maximises power output from single water droplets
• Uses inexpensive, commercially available raw materials without pre-treatments
• Achieves superior performance through surface plasmon resonance and charge injection treatments