TY - JOUR
T1 - Hand-generated piezoelectric mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion plasma
AU - Jaenicke, Olivia K.
AU - Hita Martínez, Federico G.
AU - Yang, Jinyu
AU - Im, Seong Kyun
AU - Go, David B.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is based on support from the National Science Foundation under Award No. PHY-1804091. Seong-kyun Im was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) under Award No. NRF-2020R1C1C1006837.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Author(s).
PY - 2020/8/31
Y1 - 2020/8/31
N2 - A transient spark discharge is an atmospheric pressure plasma that has applications in pollutant removal, medicine, water treatment, agriculture, bactericides, and nanomaterial synthesis. Conventional methods of generating transient sparks at atmospheric pressure usually require a high voltage input at nanosecond pulses. Piezoelectric crystals offer a path to creating plasma devices that do not require a high voltage power supply to generate high voltage outputs; they directly transform mechanical energy into electrical energy. This work examines a manually-operated piezoelectric mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion plasma device. Electrical characterization of the plasma discharge generated by this device shows that it behaves as a transient spark, discharging 0.96 mJ over approximately 30 ns, with consistent behavior across multiple consecutive discharges. Although this specific device had a low mechanical-to-plasma energy conversion efficiency of 1.54%, the piezoelectric crystal resets to an equilibrium condition after approximately 8 μs, which suggests that it could be operated with a mechanical input of up to nearly 125 kHz. This work shows the potential of generating plasma in off-the-grid situations using piezoelectric crystals. One particular application of a piezoelectric plasma device is for in situ pollution mitigation or plasma-enhanced combustion, embedding such a device on the high-frequency oscillating or rotating components of internal combustion engines and turbomachinery.
AB - A transient spark discharge is an atmospheric pressure plasma that has applications in pollutant removal, medicine, water treatment, agriculture, bactericides, and nanomaterial synthesis. Conventional methods of generating transient sparks at atmospheric pressure usually require a high voltage input at nanosecond pulses. Piezoelectric crystals offer a path to creating plasma devices that do not require a high voltage power supply to generate high voltage outputs; they directly transform mechanical energy into electrical energy. This work examines a manually-operated piezoelectric mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion plasma device. Electrical characterization of the plasma discharge generated by this device shows that it behaves as a transient spark, discharging 0.96 mJ over approximately 30 ns, with consistent behavior across multiple consecutive discharges. Although this specific device had a low mechanical-to-plasma energy conversion efficiency of 1.54%, the piezoelectric crystal resets to an equilibrium condition after approximately 8 μs, which suggests that it could be operated with a mechanical input of up to nearly 125 kHz. This work shows the potential of generating plasma in off-the-grid situations using piezoelectric crystals. One particular application of a piezoelectric plasma device is for in situ pollution mitigation or plasma-enhanced combustion, embedding such a device on the high-frequency oscillating or rotating components of internal combustion engines and turbomachinery.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091043471&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1063/5.0018967
DO - 10.1063/5.0018967
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85091043471
SN - 0003-6951
VL - 117
JO - Applied Physics Letters
JF - Applied Physics Letters
IS - 9
M1 - 093901
ER -