Large harvested energy with non-linear pyroelectric modules

Pierre Lheritier, Alvar Torelló (), Tomoyasu Usui, Youri Nouchokgwe, Ashwath Aravindhan, Junning Li, Uros Prah, Veronika Kovacova, Olivier Bouton, Sakyo Hirose and Emmanuel Defay ()
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Pierre Lheritier: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Alvar Torelló: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Tomoyasu Usui: Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
Youri Nouchokgwe: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Ashwath Aravindhan: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Junning Li: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Uros Prah: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Veronika Kovacova: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Olivier Bouton: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)
Sakyo Hirose: Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
Emmanuel Defay: Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST)

Nature, 2022, vol. 609, issue 7928, 718-721

Abstract: Abstract Coming up with sustainable sources of electricity is one of the grand challenges of this century. The research field of materials for energy harvesting stems from this motivation, including thermoelectrics1, photovoltaics2 and thermophotovoltaics3. Pyroelectric materials, converting temperature periodic variations in electricity, have been considered as sensors4 and energy harvesters5–7, although we lack materials and devices able to harvest in the joule range. Here we develop a macroscopic thermal energy harvester made of 42 g of lead scandium tantalate in the form of multilayer capacitors that produces 11.2 J of electricity per thermodynamic cycle. Each pyroelectric module can generate up to 4.43 J cm−3 of electric energy density per cycle. We also show that two of these modules weighing 0.3 g are sufficient to sustainably supply an autonomous energy harvester embedding microcontrollers and temperature sensors. Finally, we show that for a 10 K temperature span these multilayer capacitors can reach 40% of Carnot efficiency. These performances stem from (1) a ferroelectric phase transition enabling large efficiency, (2) low leakage current preventing losses and (3) high breakdown voltage. These macroscopic, scalable and highly efficient pyroelectric energy harvesters enable the reconsideration of the production of electricity from heat.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05069-2

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