Enhanced Energy Harvesting Using Multilayer Piezoelectric Ceramics

In this work, multi-layer ceramics (MLC) are fabricated for vibrational energy harvesting using 0.5 mol.% CuO added 0.69Pb(Zr_0.47Ti_0.53)O₃-0.31Pb(Zn_0.4Ni_0.6)_1/3Nb_2/3O₃ (0.5CPZT-PZNN). 0.5CPZT-PZNN has a high transduction coefficient of 20,367 m²/N with a high Curie temperature of 300°C. The effect of the number of layers (n-layers = 1, 3, 5 and 7) on the active power density is systematically investigated. MLC-based piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) can increase the active power output by approximately 2.5 times as compared to bulk PEH (n = 1). For the bulk ceramic, PEH active power density is found to be 21 mW/cm³ , whereas maximum active power density is obtained for n = 5 (49.7 mW/cm³). However, upon increasing layers (n = 7), active power density is decreased due to high capacitance. The result shows that the MLC-based PEH can increase output current/voltage and decrease the matching resistive load. In addition, effect of the load resistance on the voltage, current and active power density is also discussed. Finally, a comparison of various piezoelectric material based power output in MLC-system has been also presented.