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Historically, battery is the power source for mobile, embedded and remote system applications. However, the development of battery techniques does not follow the Moore's Law. The large physical size, limited electric quantity and high-cost…

This paper introduces a new semi-flexible device able to turn thermal gradients into electricity by using a curved bimetal coupled to an electret-based converter. In fact, a two-steps conversion is carried out: (i) a curved bimetal turns…

Harvesting energy from ambient vibration is proposed as an alternative to storage based power supplies for autonomous systems. The system presented converts the mechanical energy of a vibration into electrical energy by means of a variable…

Developing low-weight, frugal and sustainable power sources for resource-limited settings appears to be a challenging proposition for the advancement of next-generation sensing devices and beyond. Here, we report the use of centimeter-sized…

Vibration-based flow energy harvesting enables robust, in-situ energy extraction for low-power applications, such as distributed sensor networks. Fluid-structure instabilities dictate a harvester's viability since the structural response to…

Graphene-based electric power generation that converts mechanical energy of flow of ionic droplets over the device surface into electricity has emerged as promising candidate for a blue-energy network. Yet the lack of a microscopic…

Spilling tea or coffee leads to a tell-tale circular stain after the droplet dries, known as the "coffee ring effect". The evaporation of suspension droplets is a complex physical process, and predicting and controlling the particle deposit…

The dispersion of plant pathogens, such as rust spores, is responsible for more than 20% of global yield loss annually, and poses a significant threat to human health. However, the release mechanics of pathogens from flexible plant surfaces…

Vibration Energy Harvesting is an emerging technology aimed at turning mechanical energy from vibrations into electricity to power microsystems of the future. Most of present vibration energy harvesters are based on a mass spring structure…

Dew-harvesting technology radiatively cools a condenser below the dewpoint to achieve condensation of the water vapor from the atmosphere. Due to its passive nature, this technology has attracted a broad interest, in particular in the…

This paper investigates the energy harvested from the flutter of a plate in an axial flow by making use of piezoelectric materials. The equations for fully-coupled linear dynamics of the fluid-solid and electrical systems are derived. The…

In this thesis, a piezoelectric wind energy harvester is proposed for bacterial disinfection of drinking water. A mathematical model of a piezoelectric wind energy harvester is developed to predict the electrical energy from the wind…

We report generation of electrical energy from nonlinear mechanical noises available in the ambient environment using optimized piezo transduction mechanisms. Obtaining energy from an ambient vibration has been attractive for remotely…

An evaporating droplet is a dynamic system in which flow is spontaneously generated to minimize the surface energy, dragging particles to the borders and ultimately resulting in the so-called "coffee-stain effect". The situation becomes…

In this paper, a novel electret-based capacitive energy harvesting device has been developed according to out-of-plane gap closing scheme. The device is composed of a micro cantilever and a substrate which form a variable capacitor and is…

The problem of energy harvesting from flutter instabilities in flexible slender structures in axial flows is considered. In a recent study, we used a reduced order theoretical model of such a system to demonstrate the feasibility for…

Thanks to miniaturisation, it is today possible to imagine self-powered systems that use vibrations to produce their own electrical energy. Many energy-harvesting systems already exist. Some of them are based on the use of electrets:…

Due to the rapid growth in demand for power for sensing devices located in remote locations, scientists' attention has been drawn to vibration energy harvesting as an alternative to batteries. As a result of over two decades of micro-scale…

Airborne wind energy systems aim to generate renewable energy by means of the aerodynamic lift produced by a wing tethered to the ground and controlled to fly crosswind paths. The problem of maximizing the average power developed by the…

Atmospheric water harvesting technology, which extracts moisture from ambient air to generate water, is a promising strategy to realize decentralized water production. However, the prohibitively high energy consumption of heat-induced…