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Pyroelectric materials for solar energy harvesting: a comparative study.

Authors :: Manish Sharma
Aditya Chauhan
Rahul Vaish
Vishal Singh Chauhan
Source :: Smart Materials & Structures; Oct2015, Vol. 24 Issue 10, p1-1, 1p
Publication Year :: 2015
Abstract: Pyroelectric solar energy harvesting has been a prominent area of research for the past few years. This study is an attempt to compare different pyroelectric materials for harvesting solar energy. Seven different pyroelectric materials including (NH<subscript>2</subscript>CH<subscript>2</subscript>COOH)<subscript>3</subscript>·H<subscript>2</subscript>SO<subscript>4</subscript> (TGS), Sr<subscript>0.5</subscript>Ba<subscript>0.5</subscript>Nb<subscript>2</subscript>O<subscript>6</subscript> (SBN), Ca<subscript>0.2</subscript>(Sr<subscript>0.5</subscript>Ba<subscript>0.5</subscript>)<subscript>0.8</subscript>Nb<subscript>2</subscript>O<subscript>6</subscript> (CSBN), Pb(Zr<subscript>0.5</subscript>Ti<subscript>0.5</subscript>)O<subscript>3</subscript> (PZT), polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF), BaTiO<subscript>3</subscript> and LiTaO<subscript>3</subscript> were studied and compared using finite-element analysis. SBN was found to be the potential pyroelectric material with the maximum storage voltage of 11.47 V across an optimized load capacitance. SBN was subjected to further analysis, revealing an optimum power output of 4.9 μW at the optimized cycle frequency (0.040 Hz), a load resistance of 50 MΩ and a load capacitance of 4.7 μF, while the stored energy was found to be 576.87 μJ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]