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Materials and Devices for Waste Energy Harvesting 2017

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2019) | Viewed by 8650

Special Issue Editor

School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Interests: functional ceramics; ceramic processing; transparent ceramics; nanocomposites; ferrite ceramics; ferroelectric ceramics; piezoelectric/triboelectric mechanical energy harvesting
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Continuously increasing energy consumption and environmental problem has triggered global interests in research related to the creation of and saving of energy. Waste energy harvesting is an important topic in this regard. Development of materials and devices is the first step towards success of waste energy harvesting. Waste energy includes heat, light, sound, vibration or movement and so on. Materials that can be used for waste energy harvesting include piezoeletric, pyroelectric, nanopiezoelectric, nanotriboelectric, thermoelectric, phase change effect, etc. The effects of these materials should be realized by using their respective devices. Therefore, with the success of last year’s Special Issue, this Special Issue is aimed at providing with a platform for experts to present their new achievement in materials and devices for waste energy harvesting, with focus on, but not limited to, the following topics:

  • General issues on waste energy and waste energy harvesting;
  • Mechanical waste energy harvesting and devices;
  • Piezoelectric waste energy harvesters;
  • Nanogenerators for waste energy harvesting;
  • Nanotriboelectric generators;
  • Thermoelectric materials and devices for waste energy harvesting;
  • Pyroelectric waste energy harvesters;
  • Phase change materials for waste energy harvesting.

Dr. Ling Bing Kong
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • waste energy harvesting
  • piezoelectric materials and devices
  • mechanical energy harvesting
  • human motion energy harvesting
  • thermal energy harvesting
  • nanopiezoelectric generators
  • nanotriboelectric generators
  • pyroelectric materials and devices
  • thermoelectric materials and devices
  • phase change materials and applications

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 1433 KiB  
Article
An Analytical and Numerical Study of Magnetic Spring Suspension with Energy Recovery Capabilities
by Yu Jia, Shasha Li and Yu Shi
Energies 2018, 11(11), 3126; https://doi.org/10.3390/en11113126 - 12 Nov 2018
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4498
Abstract
As the automotive paradigm shifts towards electric, limited range remains a key challenge. Increasing the battery size adds weight, which yields diminishing returns in range per kilowatt-hour. Therefore, energy recovery systems, such as regenerative braking and photovoltaic cells, are desirable to recharge the [...] Read more.
As the automotive paradigm shifts towards electric, limited range remains a key challenge. Increasing the battery size adds weight, which yields diminishing returns in range per kilowatt-hour. Therefore, energy recovery systems, such as regenerative braking and photovoltaic cells, are desirable to recharge the onboard batteries in between hub charge cycles. While some reports of regenerative suspension do exist, they all harvest energy in a parasitic manner, and the predicted power output is extremely low, since the majority of the energy is still dissipated to the environment by the suspension. This paper proposes a fundamental suspension redesign using a magnetically-levitated spring mechanism and aims to increase the recoverable energy significantly by directly coupling an electromagnetic transducer as the main damper. Furthermore, the highly nonlinear magnetic restoring force can also potentially enhance rider comfort. Analytical and numerical models have been constructed. Road roughness data from an Australian road were used to numerically simulate a representative environment response. Simulation suggests that 10’s of kW to >100 kW can theoretically be generated by a medium-sized car travelling on a typical paved road (about 2–3 orders of magnitude higher than literature reports on parasitic regenerative suspension schemes), while still maintaining well below the discomfort threshold for passengers (<0.315 m/s 2 on average). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Materials and Devices for Waste Energy Harvesting 2017)
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12 pages, 11303 KiB  
Article
Evolution of Thermoelectric Properties of Zn4Sb3 Prepared by Mechanical Alloying and Different Consolidation Routes
by Pee-Yew Lee and Pei-Ho Lin
Energies 2018, 11(5), 1200; https://doi.org/10.3390/en11051200 - 09 May 2018
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3688
Abstract
In this research, a method combining the mechanical alloying with the vacuum sintering or hot pressing was adopted to obtain the compact of β-Zn4Sb3. Pure zinc and antimony powders were used as the starting material for mechanical alloying. These [...] Read more.
In this research, a method combining the mechanical alloying with the vacuum sintering or hot pressing was adopted to obtain the compact of β-Zn4Sb3. Pure zinc and antimony powders were used as the starting material for mechanical alloying. These powders were mixed in the stoichiometry ratio of 4 to 3, or more Zn-rich. Single phase Zn4Sb3 was produced using a nominally 0.6 at. % Zn rich powder. Thermoelectric Zn4Sb3 bulk specimens have been fabricated by vacuum sintering or hot pressing of mechanically alloyed powders at various temperatures from 373 to 673 K. For the bulk specimens sintering at high temperature, phase transformation of β-Zn4Sb3 to ZnSb and Sb was observed due to Zn vaporization. However, single-phase Zn4Sb3 bulk specimens with 97.87% of theoretical density were successfully produced by vacuum hot pressing at 473 K. Electric resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity were evaluated for the hot pressed specimens from room temperature to 673 K. The results indicate that the Zn4Sb3 shows an intrinsic p-type behavior. The increase of Zn4Sb3 phase ratio can increase Seebeck coefficient but decrease electric conductivity. The maximum power factor and figure of merit (ZT) value were 1.31 × 10−3 W/mK2 and 0.81 at 600 K, respectively. The ZT value was lower than that reported in the available data for materials prepared by conventional melt growth and hot pressed methods, but higher than the samples fabricated by vacuum melting and heat treatment techniques. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Materials and Devices for Waste Energy Harvesting 2017)
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