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  • Essay / Review on Micro/Nano (Mechanical) Power Generation

    Table of ContentsIntroductionEnergy Harvesting DeviceCurrent Status and TrendsLiterature ReviewDiscussionA. Piezoelectric energy harvestingAdvantages and disadvantagesB. Electrostatic and capacitiveAdvantages and disadvantagesC. Advantages and disadvantages of electromagnetic inductionD. Harvesting Triboelectric EnergyAdvantages and DisadvantagesConclusionRenewable energy production today is crucial to preserving our planet's coal reserves as well as reducing levels of carbon and other pollutants in the atmosphere. Micro/nano energy production means that energy production is done on a small scale. It has been found in other research that energy can be harvested from the vibrations of cars, humans, etc. and that the generation of micro/nano energy is feasible. However, current technology is still unable to increase efficiency to a feasible level. Despite the low efficiency, it is still desirable to harness clean energy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayIntroductionPeople have always relied on power since the Industrial Revolution between 1760 and 1800. As the demand for commodities increased during this period, it became necessary to shift from manual production methods to machines. Machines were the solution to growing demands, but they needed a source of energy to function properly. The earliest sources of energy in England before the Industrial Revolution were firewood, draft animals and human labor, as shown in Figure 1.1. The use of coal as a source of energy began to become popular during the industrial period. It has replaced wood because it produces more useful energy than firewood, as shown in Figure 1.2. Due to this massive change in methods, products were produced very quickly and the economies of each country grew exponentially. Many manufacturing plants were built to compensate for the increase in demand. So there is an increase in the use of coal around the world. This has led to a massive increase in pollutants in our atmosphere, as shown in Figure 1.3. Coal is considered a non-renewable resource. It takes millions of years to produce them naturally. Coal contains high levels of carbon, nitrogen and other gases and, when burned, these gases are released into the atmosphere where they cause the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is the phenomenon by which heat from the sun is trapped in the Earth's lower atmosphere due to the greater transparency of the atmosphere to visible radiation than infrared radiation emitted by the Earth's surface. This causes the temperature to increase and the gases to remain in the atmosphere. These are very harmful to the Earth, as well as to us since they can cause extreme and abnormal phenomena. These effects are increasingly visible today, such as smog in some cities, more violent typhoons and rising sea levels due to global warming. Many researchers have taken the initiative to search for alternatives to fossil fuels. Much research is increasing today regarding new methods of energy production. Many examples are cleaner, renewable energies such as solar, wind and tidal power. The current disadvantages of these methods are low efficiency and high cost. The researchers foundimprovements to increase efficiency so that methods are feasible to meet global energy demand. Figure 1.4 shows the evolution of global energy consumption from 1990 to 2040. This study was carried out by the International Energy Outlook 2016. They predict that there will be a 48% increase in energy consumption between 2012 and 2040. shows that 3 the use of renewable energy will increase in the years to come. This could be linked to better access to high technology in the future. Since the use of renewable energy is on the rise, it is natural for non-renewable energy sources to decrease, increase slowly, or remain constant. Although renewable energy appears to be growing faster than non-renewable energy, it is still claimed that fossil fuels will still provide almost three-quarters of energy consumption by 2040. Energy recovery device Energy harvesting is generally made up of four different components. The system can be seen in Figure 1.5. Environmental energy is readily available everywhere, such as solar and thermal energy from the sun, kinetic energy from wind, vibrational energy from passing cars, etc. An energy recovery device converts these energies into useful energy. According to Figure 1.5, environmental energy is sensed by an energy capture device and is presented to the transducer. The transducer converts environmental energy that is of no use to us into useful energy. The transducer produces an electric current. The resulting current can be unpredictable and may also require conditioning before being stored in a battery or used by an electrical load. This is the case in a solar panel setup, where the DC energy produced by the solar panel passes through an inverter to be converted into alternating current so that it can be used by our devices. The role of the power conditioning unit is not only to condition the electrical signal of the transducer, but also to optimize the energy flow of the transducer. Current Status and Trends Solar cells or photovoltaics are the most mature and established types of small-scale systems. energy harvesting applications. An example of a small-scale solar cell application is a photovoltaic-powered pocket calculator. A PV-powered pocket calculator is the Casio 991-ES calculator. The calculator's battery is charged when exposed to sunlight or any artificial light bright enough to produce power. Solar cells have been available for over 30 years. The development of photovoltaic cells in recent decades has focused on improving efficiency and cost. Thermoelectric devices for electricity generation have also been created, but less widely marketed than photovoltaic cells. However, in recent years, significant research efforts have been made to increase conversion efficiency using sustainable materials such as nanostructured materials. Movement-based harvesting has also been developed over the past 10 to 15 years. Devices based on fluid flow such as microturbines have also been developed. Another harvesting method extracts energy from radiation emitted by humans. Examples of this radiation are radio signals from cell phones, WiFi and others. The harvesters were intended to replace batteries. Their objective was to offer a perpetual and maintenance-free power supply, with a long lifespan and greatreliability. A disadvantage of micro-harvesters is that they must be designed according to their application, so they do not achieve the versatility of batteries.Literature ReviewA study conducted by Zhou, M., et. al shows a review on heat and mechanical energy harvesting in humans. The study indicates that heat and mechanical energy can be harvested from daily human activities. Specifically, in mechanical energy harvesting, energy can be extracted from human movement. Human movement manifests itself in different ways: dislocation of body centers/parts. Perform basic bodily functions such as breathing and blood circulation, redirecting leg movement using kicks, etc. It is stated that the energy available during the dislocation of the body center/parts is in two forms: the movement of the body center and the movement of different joints. The other two harness energy obviously due to the cyclical nature of these actions. The study also indicates that the mechanical energy available through human movement can be generally divided into two groups: kinetic energy due to the motion of a rigid body and elastic energy due to elastic deformation. There are different possible mechanical energy harvesting devices which are seen in the study. They are electrostatic, electromagnetic, piezoelectric and triboelectric. The corresponding advantages and disadvantages are also clearly stated in the study. The study also indicates that a combination of mechanical and thermal or hybrid harvesters is a good candidate for harvesting energy from humans. This is generally done in two ways: the integration of different energy harvesting devices and the coupling of several energy conversion mechanisms. This study explained that the conversion of thermal/mechanical energy into electricity using human movement is a highly nonlinear process. These methods face several challenges such as complexity and difficulty of manufacturing. Since this is relatively new research, there is still very little development on these methods, which would make the study infeasible. A study by Selvan, K., et. al presents a review of the methodological performance of microscale energy harvesting devices over the past decade. It is stated in the study that micro-scale energy production is very crucial and useful for powering devices without the need for large energy storage elements, especially in remote areas. There are various micro-scale harvesters known in our current technology. These are thermoelectric, thermophotovoltaic, microbial and piezoelectric fuel cells. Micro-scale harvesters, on paper, are very desirable in terms of clean energy production, but they also face several problems and limitations, such as being only optimistic. Usually, these micro-energy harvesting devices are increased to produce higher voltages and good system efficiency. This leads to negative feedback and greatly affects performance. Piezoelectric devices can produce high voltages but only low flow of electrical current due to their high impedance. They are prone to cracking or breaking and therefore have only a limited amount of applied stress and a low operating frequency. A study by Abdelkareem, M. et.al presents a detailed review of vibration energy harvesting in automobile suspension system. The study shows the energy recovery potential for different types ofvehicles as well as improving fuel efficiency when using regenerative energy shock absorbers. According to the study carried out, mechanical energy can be transformed into electrical energy using devices that use the notion of electromagnetic or piezoelectric means. The study indicates that the power harvested due to vibrations produced by road irregularities could reach up to 350 W for a mid-size sedan with four energy recovery dampers). It is also indicated that for heavy and off-road vehicles, the harvested power can reach more than 1 kW. Energy recuperators can offer fuel savings of up to 3%, or approximately 0.3 to 0.5 liters of fuel per 100 km. A study carried out by Arafa, M. et.al shows the energy recovered thanks to the vibrations of the gas pipeline. The experimental device used consists of a fan and a brass pipe held in position by two flexible elastic bands. The vibration of the fan is then isolated from the pipe by inserting a flexible rubber fitting between the pipe and the fan. This ensures that the power collected comes only from the vibrations produced by the passing gas. The vibration of the pipe was measured using an accelerometer. It was found that the maximum power delivered was 0.4 µW for base excitations of approximately 0.02 gA. The study by Ye, G. shows a study of energy harvesting from water distribution systems. A model of the study shows piston harvesting power due to pressure fluctuations in the water flow. It was shown that when the system operates in the 0.1 Hz sinusoidal data, the resonant system produces more power by 15.65 mW than in the non-resonant system where it produces less power by 10.83 mW. The dynamic displacements of the two systems (peak to peak) are 0.1 m. However, when the system operates with real data, both powers drop. Indeed, real data is difficult to model. It was found that the resonant system produces 8.11 mW but its dynamic displacement is much greater than 0.1 m. On the other hand, in the non-resonant system, the power produced is still lower than the resonant at 3.43 mW but its displacement is closer to 0.1 m. The study assumes that all energy consumed in the register has been transferred into electrical output power. The study suggests that an electromagnetic generator should be used rather than a piezoelectric generator because the frequency of vibrations generated by pressure fluctuation which is less than 1 Hz might be too low to drive a piezoelectric generator and therefore it might not not be able to read the data. . Although the movement of the piston is very small due to low-frequency pressure fluctuations, a gearbox can easily convert the slow movement into high-speed rotation that will be suitable for a commercial electromagnetic generator. A study by Edwards, R., et. al. states study on micro-energy harvesting technologies. The paper discusses the different energy harvesting technologies used today, namely photovoltaic, thermoelectric, magnetic, piezoelectric and pyroelectric, electrostatic and capacitive, as well as RF. In this review, the advantages and disadvantages of each method are also discussed along with their applications and future developments. DiscussionThe previous section listed recent research on micro/nano power generation. Micro/nano energy harvesting means small-scale energy harvesting, usually best described by microwatts, usually 10 to 100 seconds of microwatts, or sometimes nanowatts. They can.