Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting: an Overview

Abstract

Energy harvesting has experienced significant attention from researchers over the past few years due to the ever-increasing desire to produce portable and wireless electronics with extended life spans. Piezoelectric materials have been greatly used for this purpose since they possess more mechanical energy for conversion into electrical energy than other materials and can also withstand large amounts of strain making them very attractive for power harvesting. They therefore use the ambient vibrations from the environment. Other sources of harvestable ambient energy including waste heat, electromagnetic waves, wind, flowing water, and solar energy. This paper will review recent progress in the vibrational power harvesting using piezoelectric materials and their applicability in developing self powered devices.