Towards Integrated Flexible Energy Harvester and Supercapacitor for Self-powered Wearable Sensors

• We present the first results of a flexible energy harvester and a foldable supercapacitor to power wearable and flexible sensors. The flexible energy harvester is fabricated by using 38 mu m piezoelectric polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) sandwiched between carbon electrodes. Both the design and process excel in simplicity and cost-effectiveness. The flexible harvester demonstrates a power output of 2.6 mu W cm(-3) at a resonant frequency of 50 Hz with a 3dB bandwidth of about 11 Hz, which is higher than devices previously reported and similar to a commercial PZT harvester film of same size. A flexible energy storage supercapacitor (GP-SC) was fabricated using a graphite/VACNTs (vertically aligned carbon nanotubes) material as electrodes. A prototype GP-SCs has an areal capacitance of about 1.2 mF cm(-2). Finally, an integrated scheme is proposed for future work.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik -- Textil-, gummi- och polymermaterial (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering -- Textile, Rubber and Polymeric Materials (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Naturresursteknik -- Energisystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Environmental Engineering -- Energy Systems (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Annan elektroteknik och elektronik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering (hsv//eng)

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