A Class-E Amplifier for a Loosely Coupled Inductive Power Transfer System with Multiple Receivers

Alexander Sutor, Martin Heining and Rainer Buchholz
Additional contact information
Alexander Sutor: Institute of Measurement and Sensor Technology, UMIT—Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology GmbH, Eduard-Wallnöfer-Zentrum 1, 6060 Hall in Tirol, Austria
Martin Heining: Institute of Bioprocess Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Paul-Gordan-Straße 3, 91052 Erlangen, Germany
Rainer Buchholz: Institute of Bioprocess Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Paul-Gordan-Straße 3, 91052 Erlangen, Germany

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: We present a method for optimizing the electronic power system for a new type of photobioreactor or photoreactor in general. In the case of photobioreactors, photosynthetic active microorganisms or cells are grown. A novel concept for the illumination of photobioreactors was necessary, as the external illumination of those reactors leads to a limited penetration depth of light. Due to the limited penetration depth, no standard reactors can be use for cultivation, but custom made reactors with very small volume to surface ratio have to be used. This still prevents the technology from a large scale industrial impact. The solution we propose in this paper is an internal illumination via Wireless Light Emitters. This increases the manageable culture volume of photosynthetic active microorganisms or cells. The illumination system is based on floating light emitters, which are powered wirelessly by near field resonant inductive coupling. The floating light emitters are able to illuminate a photobioreactor more homogeneously than external illumination systems do. We designed a class-E amplifier and field coils to produce an intermediate frequency electromagnetic field inside the reactor. An appropriate magnetic flux density was found to be approx. B = 1 mT and the driving frequency is f = 176 kHz. We conducted experiments with a laboratory size photoreactor. The cultivation volume was 30 L containing up to 3000 WLEs. The maximum electric power input was more than 300 W and we calculated an efficiency of up to 76%.

Keywords: wireless power transfer; photobioreactor; wireless light emitter; class-E amplifier (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/6/1165/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/6/1165/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:6:p:1165-:d:217149

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().