La Consolacion College-Liloan, Cebu, Inc.

(formerly Holy Child School)

A Scientific Paper Presented to Mr. Patterson D. Ponce

In Partial Fulfillment for the Subject

General Physics in Senior High School

EXPLORING PIEZOELECTRIC FOR SOUND WAVE AS ENERGY HARVESTER

Researchers:

Hannah Shane Ajo

Kayla Gabrielle Aranda

Brylle Joshua Corpin

Engrid Albert Semblante

Jay Tejada
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The researchers would like to acknowledge the brilliance of the authors of the paper

that inspired the researchers to make this scientific paper, Ms. Liew Hui Fang, Mr. Syed

Idris Syed Hassan, Mr. Rosemizi Abd Rahim, Mr. Muzamir Isa, and Mr. Baharuddin bin

Ismail. Their work greatly helped the researchers in comprehending the potential of sound

energy harvesting.

The researchers would also acknowledge their Physics Teacher, Mr. Patterson

Ponce, whose teachings were of great help in giving the researchers a firm grip on the

message of the paper.

Lastly, the researchers would like to thank the Almighty God for ever loving them in

everyday and for helping them in finishing the paper.

This research explores the Piezoelectric for Sound Wave as Energy Harvesting. In

this research, the characteristics of piezoelectric as sound wave energy harvester are

presented. This research experimented at the range of 35-100dB of noise, comparable to

ambient noise. The energy transducer used for this research was Q220-A4503YB. This type

of piezoelectric has achieved a better performance in term of output power or voltage. The

output of the transducer was connected to 3 different types of amplifying circuitry, Villard

Voltage Circuitry, Dickson Voltage Multiplier, and Full-Wave Rectifier. The output of with or

without external circuitry devices had attained good agreement with expected theory

within the frequency of interest. The transducer attained maximum power response of

33.133 dBuW at 96 dB. Villard and Dickson produced output voltages greater than the full-

wave rectifier with 9.817V, 9.593V, and 3.504V, respectively at 96dB. It shows that the

Villard Voltage Circuitry was the best performing of the bunch. This proposed harvester

will then be a good offer to replace battery-operation.

The world getting louder and louder. Development brought about by huge

populations also bring noise with them. An assessment by Sound Proof Cow found that 10

of the world’s noisiest cities have populations of above 2 million. These cities reach noise

levels of around 85-100 dB, mainly caused by heavy traffic with loud cars, construction

projects, and factories (Sound Proof Cow, 2018). This noise causes adverse health effects

like hearing impairment, hypertension, and acceleration of latent mental illnesses (Goines

& Hagler, 2007). Converting noise into useful, productive energy forms would likely

prevent these adverse effects from being inflicted to people (Yuan et al., 2019).

Harvesting energy, specifically electrical energy, from sound energy would, in

theory, reduce the noise people would experience as energy from noise would be absorbed

and transformed from sound energy to electrical energy. This would supply cities with

clean, free, renewable electrical energy. This then would reduce the reliance of cities on

fossil fuels, which makes up 78.4% of the global energy mix (REN21, 2014). Fossil fuels, as

proven in countless studies, exacerbate global warming by emitting greenhouse gases

through their extraction process or through their combustion (National Geographic Society,

2019). An effort to reduce the reliance of enormously populated cities, centers of power

consumption, on fossil fuels would result to a reduction in the need for fossil fuels.

Noise energy harvesting is a concept that could potentially alleviate the adverse

effects concept cannot be of noise and global warming, but the big question is whether it
can be possible. A wonderful put into good use if it is impossible to implement in the first

place. It is important to ascertain whether the concept could be realized or would it remain

to be just a concept.
 INTRODUCTION

Energy harvesting systems give longevity on devices that constantly require energy

by harvesting energy from its environment. This helps supplement the ultimate drawback

of battery-powered systems, having batteries run out of power. With energy harvesting

systems, energy used for powering devices would come from the environment, thus

eliminating the need for batteries to be replaced when it runs out of power. Energy

harvesting can be implemented by siphoning mechanical vibration, electromagnetic, wind,

and temperature variations. For sound energy harvesting, mechanical transduction would

be used. This can be implemented in 3 ways, electromagnetic (inductive), electrostatic

(capacitive), or piezoelectric. Most harvesters have low power outputs; thus, integration of

boosting circuity is needed to harness higher power output for most practical uses.

Piezoelectric materials are naturally used for energy harvesting from ambient vibration

sources, because they can proficiently convert mechanical strain to an electrical charge

without any extra power and has a simple mechanical structure and according to past

studies, Lead-zirconate-titanate is suitable for this task. Though, power output of energy

harvesters is very weak for practical use. To resolve this, circuits have been used to

improve the electrical output of piezoelectric devices. In this circuit, the energy can be

stored by using a full-wave rectifier. Ottman analyzed the optimal power flow of

piezoelectric device, but the efficiency of energy harvester was unable to achieve the

maximum point. Liu et al., presented a power management circuit based on matching the

source impedance and switched-capacitor network, but in low frequency applications. The

matching circuit can maximize the stored power, and the frequency conversion circuit can

make the system much smaller. An investigation conducted by Kwon et. al., is to improve
the performance and efficiency of energy harvesting. He proposed a piezoelectric energy

harvesting circuit with CMOS design to avoid extra losses and low voltage restrictions

problem with a rectifier. This is done by transferring and extracting energy directly from

piezoelectric transducer to the battery via switched inductor. Experimental results show

that the efficiency of the proposed system can harvest energy by 71% and 69% from 3V

and 1.5V peak piezoelectric voltages, respectively.

The goal of this research is to create an effective piezoelectric sound harvesting

system. This is expected to be realized by extracting sound energy from environmental and

convert it to electrical energy for public utility. A major issue to this is that the power

output of this type of systems are far too small for consumption. So, mechanisms to

improve the energy output is being developed for this endeavor to be realized.
 BODY

1. Concept of Sound Harvester

In this study, the few types of piezoelectric transducer are being characterized

and selected to achieve resonant frequency which less than 1 kHz based on

compatibility with low frequency ambient sources vibration. Piezoelectric material

types used in this research study include Q220-A4-202YB, Q220-A4-303YB, Q220-A4-

503YB, D220-A4-303YB, D220-A4-503YB and EH220-A4-503YB. Several interface

methods are explored in order to extract power from piezoelectric material which

includes full-bridge rectifier and voltage multiplier circuit. Full-bridge rectifier and

voltage multiplier are normally used to convert the ac output of piezoelectric harvester

into dc voltage. Full-bridge rectifier and voltage multiplier circuits were constructed

using the capacitor and diodes design platform. A full-wave bridge rectifier is very

efficient, converting positive and negative cycles from piezoelectric transducer and

converts to d.c voltage. It is unique because its formation allows the negative portion of

the input signal to follow the same current path as when it does during the positive

input signal.

Furthermore, there are other two types of piezoelectric material that will be

utilized in this study such as Villard and Dickson voltage multipliers. They have same

function as the rectifier in the sense that only the positive portion of the ambient signal

is used. 1N5817G schottky diode has been used into rectifier and voltage multipliers
 designed since it has the lower forward voltage drop. Small voltage drop will allow as

minimum as possible the sound wave to be harvested. The voltage multiplying is

achieved when the first capacitor and first diode act just as a half wave rectifier during

the positive portion of the input signal. When the input signal becomes negative, first

diode is in reverse biased and the second is in forward biased allowing the first

capacitor to aid in charging the storage capacitor and creating a voltage equal to

multiple inputs.

The existing cascade voltage multiplier can harvest an output voltage higher

than the applied input voltage. However, a new circuit structure that can deliver a

higher DC output voltage with lower ripple and faster output settling-time is in

demand.

2. Methodology

In order to design the piezoelectric for sound wave as energy harvester, two

important stages are introduced. First, a sound transducer is developed which is able to

harvest the sound wave energy and convert it into a useful electrical energy. This is

accomplished by capturing sound wave energy from the source such as speaker and

converting the signal by using piezoelectric which acts as an energy transducer. Second

stage, an interface circuit is used to increase the output power to become useful to end

application. This is due to the condition of the signal generated in piezoelectric

transducer is low.
 2.1 Characterization of Piezoelectric Transducer in term of Output, Current and

Power

The experimental setup to measure the characteristic of piezoelectric

transducer is shown in Fig 1. Sound wave is generated using function generator and

then transmitted via high power loudspeaker. A piezoelectric transducer is placed

inside wood absorber from loudspeaker and measured the output using oscilloscope.

A sound level meter is located near the piezoelectric transducer in order to

determine the sound level intensity at the vicinity. To reach the maximum output of

a.c signal, the resonant frequency of the all types piezoelectric materials must be

matched with the sound wave applied.

Otherwise, the output will drop significantly. The sound intensity (dB) is also

another important parameter that affects the performance of piezoelectric

transducer in producing the output signal. Therefore, both parameters will be

analyzed to determine the optimum output of a.c signal.

Fig. 2. The experimental setup for characteristics of the piezoelectric transducer harvester

on sound wave
 2.2 Harvesting Interface Circuitry

Fig 2 presents a block diagram for measuring setup of harvesting circuit with

piezoelectric transducer. Rectifier is used to convert the a.c signal from the output of

piezoelectric transducer into d.c power and the output results were measured using

oscilloscope and multimeter. The sound wave is applied at the similar resonant

frequency (68 Hz). The output signal voltage from piezoelectric transducer is

amplified by the rectifier or voltage multiplier circuitry.

Fig. 2. The block diagram representation of harvesting circuit with piezoelectric

transducer.

3. Results

3.1 Analysis of Power for Piezoelectric Transducer at 68 Hz

The result of output power from overall piezoelectric with difference levels of

sound intensity shows that only Q220-A4-503YB and EH220-A4-503YB piezoelectric

transducer have higher efficiency output power generated compared to others types.

The Q220-503YB can produce the higher output power up to 33dB (uW) and then

followed by EH220-A4-503YB which have almost 20 dB (uW). The reason of these

two piezoelectric transducers has great output power due to size are large and having

biggest surface to harvest energy from loudspeaker. Whereas D220-A4-303YB have

19.146 dB(uW) and D220-A4-203YB have 16.96. The Q220-A4-203YB and Q22-A4-
303YB have 250 Hz resonant frequency and output power are 2.143 dB(uW) and

4.8485 dB(uW) respectively. The resonant frequency, 68 Hz is selected for the

piezoelectric almost other because it is can capable to produce the higher output

voltage. The sound level intensity is varied by adjusting the function generator

amplitude.

The piezoelectric transducer Q220-A4-503YB has demonstrated that when the

sound level is increased from 60 dB until 85 dB, the piezoelectric output is also

linearly increased. When the sound level is 85 dB and above, the output starts

saturated which probably due to the stiffness of the piezoelectric material. The

maximum output voltage signal of piezoelectric is found to reach a value of around

3.894 V at 96 dB. The output power measured at this point is around 33.1 dBuW. If

extra higher sound wave intensity level is applied, it will probably damage the

piezoelectric transducer. The graph demonstrates the relationship between the power

dB(uW) ranging from -20 to 40 and the sound level (dB).

3.2 Analysis of Output Voltage for Interface Circuit with Piezoelectric Transducer at
68 Hz

In the outputs of piezoelectric when interface with voltage rectifier or multiplier

circuits. The results illustrate that the harvesting circuits start operating when the

sound level is more than 75 dB even though the piezoelectric itself can harvest the

sound wave as low as 50 dB. This is because the forward threshold voltage for the

diode used is 0.45 V. When the piezoelectric is connected to full wave rectifier, the

output voltage is 3.504 V at 96 dB sound intensity level of generated wave. Whereas,

the Villard and Dickson voltage multiplier are doubling the input from piezoelectric
and produced output voltage of 9.817 V and 9.593 V respectively at 96 dB of sound

intensity level.
 CONCLUSION

The results show that the noise energy in ambient environment is successfully

harvested and stored by the designed harvesting module. Vibrations can be measured in

any environment and converted into this equivalent circuit. In this paper, new method of

harnessing the piezoelectric has been developed. The output power of piezoelectric

transducer only extracted at -20 dBUW, but it is often lowest and not appropriate to power

up other devices. Therefore, with a combination of a power source for different interface

circuits such as rectifier and voltage multiplier are used in order to extract the ambient

energy. The multipliers designed have produced the best results in terms of extracting the

most ambient vibrational energy. The energy harvesting system is capable of

apprehending even minute amounts of stress and vibrations, converting them to electric

power sufficient to run low-power electronic systems. Hence, employing environmental

energy sources as an alternative to electrochemical battery can be an excessive advantage

to some sources in powering low consumer electronic devices and environment.

Though piezoelectric energy harvesting has been thoroughly investigated since the

late 1900s, it still remains an emerging technology and critical area of interest. Energy

harvesting so far mainly focused on low power devices. But, using piezoelectric for sound

wave as energy harvesting is still impactful and beneficial in the modern world since

energy harvest is very important as it serves as the core on making devices function

especially those devices that ran out of power easily.

power it consumes no longer come from organisms that died millions of years ago, but

from those living in the present world. This vision of making a sustainable energy cycle

where the energy of people would not be wasted and could be used to power our modern

technologies, instead of using dirty coal-powered plants that help destroy the

environment. Using the noise that people make to be turned into power the society use to

build on itself.