Nanotechnology Now

Our NanoNews Digest Sponsors







Heifer International

Wikipedia Affiliate Button


Home > Press > Tiny generators turn waste heat into power

Abstract:
The second law of thermodynamics is a big hit with the beret-wearing college crowd because of its implicit existential crunch. The tendency of a closed systems to become increasingly disordered if no energy is added or removed is a popular, if not depressing, "things fall apart" sort-of-law that would seem to confirm the adolescent experience.

Tiny generators turn waste heat into power

Washington, DC | Posted on September 28th, 2010

Now a joint team of Ukrainian and American scientists has demanded more work and less poetry from the second law of thermodynamics, proposing a novel "pyroelectric" method to power tiny devices using waste heat.

Using tiny structures called ferroelectric nanowires, they can rapidly generate an electrical current in response to any change in the ambient temperature, harvesting otherwise wasted energy from thermal fluctuations. Their report appears in the Journal of Applied Physics, which is published by the American Institute of Physics.

Explains lead researcher Anna Morozovska of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, "The second law of thermodynamics rules modern life: Through all kinds of industry, humans consistently produce an enormous amount of waste heat. However, the laws of thermodynamics do not exclude rescuing some of this energy by harvesting the thermal fluctuations to produce electricity."

Pyroelectrictricity can play key role in consumer electronics, says Morozovska, and recovering this heat in the form of pyroelectric energy may bring about a new era of "tiny energy." Pyroelectric nanogenerators could be extremely useful for powering specific tasks in biological applications, medicine and nanotechnology, particularly in space because they perform well in low temperatures.

In an investigation of the pyroelectric properties of ferroelectric nanowires, the team analyzed how the pyroelectric coefficient corresponds to the radius of the wire and its coupling. They found that the smaller the wire radius, the more the pyroelectric coefficient diverges until a critical radius at which the response changes to paraelectric (above the Curie temperature). This so-called "size effect" could be used to tune the phase transition temperatures in ferroelectric nanostructures, thus enabling a system with a large, tunable, pyroelectric response.

In theory, the use of rectifying contacts could enable the polarized ferroelectric nanowire to generate a giant, pyroelectric, direct current and voltage in response to temperature fluctuations that could be harvested and detected using a bolometric detector. Such a nanoscale device would not contain any moving parts and could be suitable for long-term operation in ambient applications such as in-vitro biological systems and outer space. The researchers calculate that these little nanogenerators would have very high efficiency at low temperatures, decreasing at warmer temperatures.

The article, "Pyroelectric response of ferroelectric nanowires: Size effect and electric energy harvesting" by Anna N. Morozovska, Eugene A. Eliseev, George S. Svechnikov, and Sergei V. Kalinin appears in the Journal of Applied Physics. jap.aip.org/resource/1/japiau/v108/i4/p042009_s1

####

About American Institute of Physics
The American Institute of Physics is a federation of 10 physical science societies representing more than 135,000 scientists, engineers, and educators and is one of the world's largest publishers of scientific information in the physical sciences. Offering partnership solutions for scientific societies and for similar organizations in science and engineering, AIP is a leader in the field of electronic publishing of scholarly journals. AIP publishes 12 journals (some of which are the most highly cited in their respective fields), two magazines, including its flagship publication Physics Today; and the AIP Conference Proceedings series. Its online publishing platform Scitation hosts nearly two million articles from more than 185 scholarly journals and other publications of 28 learned society publishers.

About Journal of Applied Physics

Journal of Applied Physics is the American Institute of Physics' (AIP) archival journal for significant new results in applied physics; content is published online daily, collected into two online and printed issues per month (24 issues per year). The journal publishes articles that emphasize understanding of the physics underlying modern technology, but distinguished from technology on the one side and pure physics on the other. See: jap.aip.org/

For more information, please click here

Contacts:
Jason Bardi

301-209-3091

Copyright © American Institute of Physics

If you have a comment, please Contact us.

Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.

Bookmark:
Delicious Digg Newsvine Google Yahoo Reddit Magnoliacom Furl Facebook

Related News Press

Physics

Weird science: Crystals melt when they're cooled May 22nd, 2013

News and information

Whirlpools on the Nanoscale Could Multiply Magnetic Memory: At the Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab scientists join an international team to control spin orientation in magnetic nanodisks May 22nd, 2013

Bacterial spare parts filter antibiotic residue from groundwater May 22nd, 2013

UofL scientists uncover how grapefruits provide a secret weapon in medical drug delivery May 22nd, 2013

Atomic-Scale Investigations Solve Key Puzzle of LED Efficiency: MIT and Brookhaven Lab scientists use electron microscopy imaging techniques to settle a solid-state controversy and raise new experimental possibilities May 22nd, 2013

Discoveries

Weird science: Crystals melt when they're cooled May 22nd, 2013

Innovation could bring flexible solar cells, transistors, displays May 22nd, 2013

Researchers Stitch Defects into the World’s Thinnest Semiconductor May 22nd, 2013

Whirlpools on the Nanoscale Could Multiply Magnetic Memory: At the Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab scientists join an international team to control spin orientation in magnetic nanodisks May 22nd, 2013

Announcements

Whirlpools on the Nanoscale Could Multiply Magnetic Memory: At the Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab scientists join an international team to control spin orientation in magnetic nanodisks May 22nd, 2013

Bacterial spare parts filter antibiotic residue from groundwater May 22nd, 2013

UofL scientists uncover how grapefruits provide a secret weapon in medical drug delivery May 22nd, 2013

Atomic-Scale Investigations Solve Key Puzzle of LED Efficiency: MIT and Brookhaven Lab scientists use electron microscopy imaging techniques to settle a solid-state controversy and raise new experimental possibilities May 22nd, 2013

Energy

Innovation could bring flexible solar cells, transistors, displays May 22nd, 2013

Researchers Stitch Defects into the World’s Thinnest Semiconductor May 22nd, 2013

Atomic-Scale Investigations Solve Key Puzzle of LED Efficiency: MIT and Brookhaven Lab scientists use electron microscopy imaging techniques to settle a solid-state controversy and raise new experimental possibilities May 22nd, 2013

Iran to Hold 1st Conference on Applications of Nanotechnology in Energy Industry May 21st, 2013

Battery Technology/Capacitors/Generators/Piezoelectrics

Add boron for better batteries: Rice University theorists say graphene-boron mix shows promise for lithium-ion batteries May 17th, 2013

New Mechanism Converts Natural Gas to Energy Faster, Captures CO2 May 7th, 2013

Microwave oven cooks up solar cell material: Nanocrystal semiconductor for photovoltaics, medical sensors, heat reuse May 6th, 2013

Improving materials that convert heat to electricity and vice-versa May 5th, 2013

Alliances/Partnerships/Distributorships

Imec and GLOBALFOUNDRIES collaborate to advance high-density memory technology: STT-MRAM offers enhanced performance and scalability for embedded and standalone applications May 21st, 2013

NIA Public Briefing: Nanotechnology and the Council of Europe May 17th, 2013

Imec and Renesas collaborate on ultra-low power short range radios: Collaboration will develop robust wireless solutions for future electronics May 16th, 2013

HELIOS Program Develops Complete Supply Chain for Integrating Photonics with CMOS Circuit via IC Fabrication Processes May 14th, 2013

NanoNews-Digest
The latest news from around the world, FREE





  Premium Products
NanoNews-Custom
Only the news you want to read!
 Learn More
NanoTech-Transfer
University Technology Transfer & Patents
 Learn More
NanoStrategies
Full-service, expert consulting
 Learn More












ASP
Nanotechnology Now Featured Books




NNN

The Hunger Project








abbigliamento uomo
Computer Accessories
© Copyright 1999-2013 7th Wave, Inc. All Rights Reserved PRIVACY POLICY :: CONTACT US :: STATS :: SITE MAP :: ADVERTISE