Thread: piezoelectricity harvesting

Hello yall! Very cool forum you have here!
I'll get to my question: How can one properly harvest the electricity from a piezoelectric device, store it and use it later. for simple instance, could I take the striker off my bbq and charge a dead regargeable AA battery with it? Thanks in advance for any replies!
-Loose

You need enough of them to generate an appreciable amount of current...then you may need to convert it to DC with a bridge rectifier. The energy could then be stored in capacitors, which then can be discharged to charge batteries. I'm not sure if the small current they generate can directly be used to charge batteries since I have heard that charging requires a fairly continuous regulated supply, hence the need for capacitors, or any other ripple reduction mechanism.

They are now building walking panels for the street that will take the energy of your footsteps and convert them into energy for the power grid via piezoelectric devices. Now...that can also be used to track people, but who cares about privacy anymore, right?

I've heard of those walkways, but how do you imagine they can track an individual?

A quick related question: since a piezoelectric generator generates a voltage from the deformation of a piezoelectric material, if you had a heavy object, say, a building, just sitting on top of a piezoelectric generator, would this generate a constant voltage?
Essentially, is it electricity generated WHEN a mechanical force is applied or electricity generated AS LONG AS a mechanical force is applied?
Thanks

Originally Posted by looselegs

Hello yall! Very cool forum you have here!
I'll get to my question: How can one properly harvest the electricity from a piezoelectric device, store it and use it later. for simple instance, could I take the striker off my bbq and charge a dead regargeable AA battery with it? Thanks in advance for any replies!
-Loose

You can do this in principle, but in practice it is very inefficient way to generate electricity and charge a battery.

There are perfectly good rechargable AA batteries for sale and equally good chargers for them. You can also just go out an buy an ordinary AA battery. But that battery would not be very good for lighting your BBQ. It is best to use devices that are suited to the application at hand. A piezo crystal is not a good choice if you want to charge a battery.

A piezo crystal is not a good choice if you want to charge a battery.

There are piezo based energy harvesters designed to charge small device batteries using the vibration from vehicular motion and other applications. Advanced battery developers such as the linked one are working with piezo device developers to optimize their designs. I suspect these devices will be in extremely widespread use within a few years.

http://www.infinitepowersolutions.com/partners