Toward Heat Energy Harvesting using Pyroelectric Material

DANIEL GUYOMAR, GAËL SEBALD, ELIE LEFEUVRE AND AKRAM KHODAYARI*

LGEF Laboratory, INSA-Lyon, 8 rue de la physique, 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex, France

ABSTRACT: This study investigates the feasibility of heat energy harvesting using pyro-
electric effect. In order to improve the effectiveness of the energy conversion from heat to
electricity, the synchronized switch harvesting on inductor (SSHI) (Guyomar et al., 2005)
technique is experimentally tested, which has already proved its quality in electromechanical
conversion. For several amplitude variations of temperature from 0.5 to 8.0 K, the conversion
efficiency is found about 0.02% of Carnot thermodynamic cycle with a standard interface.
Under the same heating conditions, experimental results show that the SSHI technique
increases the converted energy by a factor which is about 2.5 times of the standard interface,
with which the efficiency practically becomes 0.05% of Carnot thermodynamic cycle. In this
case, the produced electrical power for temperature amplitude 7 K is more than 0.3 mW for an
energy harvesting device composed of 8 g of active material. The main power limitation is due
to temperature frequency. Low speed of heat transfer makes it difficult to obtain fast
temperature variations with large amplitude.

Key Words: energy harvesting, pyroelectric materials, PVDF film, SSHI.

INTRODUCTION authors (Olsen et al., 1985b). Theoretical work by

HERMOELECTRIC generators which convert heat
T into electrical energy have been of great interest in
recent years. These generators are highly reliable, silent,
and environmentally friendly electrical power sources.
These advantages together with the capability of recy-
cling waste heat as an energy source make them an
attractive renewable power supply (Rowe, 1995, 1999;
Wu, 1996).
The pyroelectric effect is another possibility for
directly converting heat into electricity. It manifests
itself in a polar material due to the temperature depen-
dence of its electrical polarization (Lines and Glass,
1977). The consensus of early theoretical studies was
that the conversion efficiency of pyroelectric devices was
limited to 51% (Clingman and Moore, 1961; Childress,
1962; Fatuzzo et al., 1966). Although the conversion
efficiencies were not stated for the earliest experiments,
it can be easily estimated that the efficiencies were
50.01% for the measurements performed by Hoh (1963)
and Beam et al. (1966). Olsen et al. (1985a) by using the
copolymers of P(VDF-TrFE) that exhibit large piezo-
electric and pyroelectric effect showed that the density
of output electrical energy of conversion cycle is
30 mJ/cm3. In addition, the effect of the power cycle
type upon the amount of output electrical work for
a pyroelectric converter has been measured by these
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
E-mail: Akramkhodayari@yahoo.com
Drummond (1975) and Gonzalo (1976) indicated that
much higher efficiencies (47% and 10–15%, respectively,
for the two authors) might be possible.
Pyroelectric energy conversion promises to find appli-
cation both on earth and in space. Advances in materials
and in thermal-electrical cycling methods are expected to
provide low cost and high-power density electrical
generators (Olsen et al., 1985b). For commercial appli-
cation of IR detectors, poly(vinylidene fluride)(PVDF)
and its copolymers are the interesting materials to use
due to their low price, easy process, and low mechanical
impedance (Whatmore, 1986). The PVDF film can be
applied in the electro-optical, electromechanical, and
biomedical fields (Erli et al., 2003). Other potential
opportunities include nonlinear optic, micro-capacitors,
ferroelectric memories, and electromechanical and elec-
trothermal sensors and actuators applications in a wide
range of physical environments and frequency ranges.
This study presents experimental results obtained with
a pyroelectric microgenerator. Two techniques for the
harvesting of energy are tested and compared. SSHI
technique (Richard et al., 1999, 2000; Guyomar et al.,
2005; Lefeuvre et al., 2006) which is implemented in this
study increases the converted energy resulting for a given
thermal cycle. This technique consists in adding a non-
linear processing of the pyroelectric voltage, achieved by
an electrical switching device connected to the pyro-
electric elements. It consists in leaving the pyroelements
in open circuit except during a very brief period of time
that takes place at each switch trigger. This method is

JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT MATERIAL SYSTEMS AND STRUCTURES, Vol. 20—February 2009 265
1045-389X/09/03 0265–7 $10.00/0 DOI: 10.1177/1045389X08093564
ß SAGE Publications 2009
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore
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266 D. GUYOMAR ET AL.

interesting because it consists in driving the voltage
with a few solid-state switches (i.e., MOSFET transistor)
requiring very low power. The nonlinear switching pro-
cess artificially increases the pyroelectric voltage, result-
ing in a significant increase in the electrical power.
It should be noted that in the case of open circuit the
pyroelement voltage is proportional to temperature.
Then the switching device is triggered on each tempera-
ture extremum that corresponds to the extremum of the
pyroelectric voltage. The switching device includes an
electronic switch in series with an inductor. The pyro-
electric voltage is quickly inverted on each triggering of
the switching device. It is important to note that this
technique is simple enough to be self-powered. In this
experiment, the pyroelectric elements are connected to
each other in parallel and they are connected to an elec-
trical network constituting the energy receiver. The
voltage of the pyroelectric element depends on the temp-
erature variations and the behavior of the energy receiver.
A simple electrothermal modeling of the pyroelectric
material is first presented. Then the details of the
operation of the electrical circuit with and without the
switching device are presented. Expressions of the har-
vested electrical powers are derived in each case from the
pyroelectric material equations. In particular, it is shown
that the converted energy strongly depends on the ther-
mal solicitation and the global electrothermal coupling
factor, which is equivalent to the percentage of har-
vested power compared to Carnot’s optimal efficiency.
Finally, theoretical predictions are compared to experi-
mental results obtained with a PVDF pyroelectric
microgenerator.
PYROELECTRIC MODELING
A schematic description of the considered pyroelectric
set up is presented in Figure 1.  is the input temp-
erature, provided by air flow to the pyroelectric element,
I and V are the outgoing current and the pyroelectric
voltage, respectively.
The pyroelectric equations can be written as:
D ¼ "E þ p: ð1Þ
dD
I¼A : ð2Þ
dt
Heating resistor
I
: :
I ¼   C0 V : ð3Þ
"A
C0 ¼ : ð4Þ
e
 ¼ p A: ð5Þ
In these equations, D, E, ", and p are the electrical dis-
placement, electrical field, dielectric permittivity, and the
pyroelectric coefficient, respectively. A, e, and C0 are the
pyroelectric element surface, its thickness, and its capa-
citance, respectively. Equation (3) is the macroscopic
form of Equation (1) that can be calculated by substi-
tution of Equation (2) into time derivation of Equation
(1). In Equations (4) and (5),  and C0 are the functions
of pyroelectric properties (Tables 1 and 2).
ENERGY HARVESTING DEVICE
The aim of this section is to express the harvested
power as a function of the electrical load and the temp-
erature variations of the pyroelectric material. The har-
vested power is calculated in the case of standard
electrical interface and in the case of nonlinear switching
device.
Standard Interface
The considered standard interface circuit shown in
Figure 2 includes a diode rectifier bridge and a filter
capacitor. This is practically the simplest circuit for rec-
tifying and smoothing an alternating voltage. The termi-
nal electrical load is modeled by an equivalent resistor
RL, which has power consumption equal to the average
input power of the actual terminal load that could be
powered by the microgenerator. The standard circuit is
analyzed with considering sinusoidal variations of the
temperature . In this condition, the open circuit voltage
V of pyroelectric elements is also sinusoidal, but the
electrical circuit connected to the pyroelectric elements
Table 1. PVDF film properties.
C0 37 nF
p 24  106 C/m2 Ka
"/"0 12
cp 2.3 J/cm3 Ka
a
Capineri et al., 2000.

θ
V Table 2. Specifications of the experimental setup.
Energy harvesting
device Dimensions of the pyroelectric film 100  20  0.11 mm3
Number of pyroelectric films 16
Mass of films 8g
Air flow Pyroelectric element Temperature variations range 0–88C
Frequency 0.1–1 Hz
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the pyroelectric microgenerator.

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 Heat Energy Harvesting using Pyroelectric Material 267

changes the waveform of V. Indeed, the pyroelectric of harvested power P can be calculated from
elements are in open circuit when the rectifier bridge is Equation (8) (Guyomar et al., 2005).
blocking, in other words when the absolute value of V is Z t0 þT=2
lower than the rectified voltage VDC. The corresponding VDC T
I dt ¼ : ð6Þ
theoretical temperature and voltage waveforms are pre- t0 RL 2
sented in Figure 3. Here, the voltage ripple of VDC is RL 
neglected. This is a good approximation provided that VDC ¼ !M : ð7Þ
RL C0 ! þ ð=2Þ
the time constant RLCr remains much larger than the
V2 R L 2
temperature period. The harvested power for tempera- P ¼ DC ¼ !2 M
2
: ð8Þ
ture  is calculated considering the pyroelectric outgoing RL ðRL C0 ! þ ð=2ÞÞ2
current I given by Equation (3).
In steady state operation, the average current through In the case of weakly coupled energy harvesting devices,
the filter capacitor Cr is zero, so the absolute value of the the harvested power is negligible compared to the
outgoing electrical charge from the pyroelectric element thermal power. Therefore, the harvested energy has no
during a period T is equal to the average current flowing significative influence on the temperature amplitude M.
through the load RL. When the pyrovoltage V is lower In this case, the average harvested power reaches a
than the rectified voltage VDC, the rectifier is open maximum PMAX for an optimal equivalent load resis-
circuited, then the outgoing pyrocurrent I is zero and, tance ROPT. They are given in Equations (9) and (10),
therefore, the voltage and the temperature vary propor- respectively.
tionally, as shown by Equation (3). When the pyro-
voltage V reaches VDC, the rectifier conducts and 2 ! 2
PMAX ¼  : ð9Þ
the voltage is blocked at VDC. The conduction is again 2C0 M
canceled when the temperature  starts to decrease 
ROPT ¼ : ð10Þ
(Figure 3). 2C0 !
It is considered that integral of the current I generated
by pyroelectric element is directly equal to the current Series-SSHI
flowing through the load RL. Starting from Equation (6)
and considering the second pyroelectric Equation (3), The technique used in this study called synchronized
the rectified voltage VDC can be expressed as a function switch harvesting on inductor (SSHI) has been derived
of the temperature amplitude M (7). Then, the average from the synchronized switch damping on inductor
(SSDI) which is a nonlinear technique. This technique
consists of adding a switching device in series with the
pyroelectric element as shown in Figure 4. This device is
I composed of a switch and an inductance L connected
together in series. The switch is always open, except in
Pyroelement the vicinity of extremums of temperature. When the
Cr RL switch is closed, the capacitance C0 of the pyroelectric
V VDC
element and the inductance L constitute an oscillator.
The switch is kept close until the voltage on the pyro-
electric element is reversed. It corresponds to a time
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ti ¼  LC0 equal to a half period of the oscillator.
Figure 2. Standard interface circuit. The voltage and temperature waveforms are shown in
Figure 5. Equation (11) gives the relationship between
the pyroelectric voltages VM and Vm before and after the
qM
θ
t0 + T/ 2 I
0 t
t0 L S
Pyroelement RL
V VDC
Cr
V VDC

0
−VDC

Figure 3. Standard interface: temperature and voltage waveforms. Figure 4. Series–SSHI interface circuit.

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268 D. GUYOMAR ET AL.

θ
Series–SSHI interface with Carnot thermodynamic
t0 +T/2 cycle, which is the cycle exhibiting the theoretical effi-
0 t
t0 ciency limit for converting thermal energy. The Carnot
cycle’s efficiency th,carnot is:
V VM
L
th, carnot ¼ 1  ð18Þ
VDC H
0
where L is the cold source temperature and H is the
−Vm
hot source temperature. Equation (18) can also be
written as:
Figure 5. Series–SSHI interface: temperature and voltage wave-
forms. 2M
th, carnot ¼ ð19Þ
H
switching process, the rectified voltage VDC, and the where M is the previously defined amplitude of temp-
electrical quality factor Qi. The open circuit evolution of erature. Substitution of Equations (4) and (5) into
the pyroelectric voltage V gives another relation between Equation (9) for the standard interface leads to:
VM and Vm, described in Equation (12). The equality of
the input energy of the rectifier and the energy dissipated p2 f M
2
v
Pmax ¼ ð20Þ
by the equivalent load resistance RL during a semi- "
period of temperature T/2 leads to Equation (13). where v is the volume of the pyroelectric material and
Starting from Equations (11)–(13), the load voltage f is the frequency. Thus, the converted electric energy
VDC is expressed as a function of the temperature over a thermal period may be expressed as:
amplitude M, the equivalent load resistor RL, and the
system parameters in Equation (14). The average p2  M
2
v we ¼ ð21Þ
harvested power expression given in Equation (15) "
may be calculated using the load voltage expression and heat energy can be written as (Guyomar et al.,
(Equation (14)) (Lefeuvre et al., 2006). 2006):
Q ¼ pEH þ 2cp M ð22Þ
Vm  VDC ¼ ðVM  VDC Þe=2Qi : ð11Þ
2 where cp is the heat capacity (J m3K1) of the pyro-
VM ¼ Vm þ M : ð12Þ electric material at constant polarization. In the above
C0
Z t0 þT=2 equation, the first term can be neglected compared to

VDC Idt ¼ C0 VDC ðVM þ Vm Þ ¼ V2 : ð13Þ the second term in the case of very low electrothermal
t0 RL ! DC
coupling, and therefore
2M RL !ð1 þ e=2Qi Þ
VDC ¼ =2Q
: Q  2cp M : ð23Þ
ð1  e i Þ þ 2R C !ð1 þ e=2Qi Þ
L 0
ð14Þ Then, the efficiency of the standard interface can be
written as:
For constant temperature amplitude M, the average w e p2  M
harvested power reaches a maximum value PMAX given th, standard ¼ ¼ : ð24Þ
Q 2"cp
in Equation (16) for an optimal equivalent load resis-
tance ROPT given by Equation (17) The standard interface efficiency can be expressed as a
function of Carnot cycle efficiency as:
V2DC
P¼ : ð15Þ 1
R th, standard ¼ k2electrothermal th, carnot ð25Þ
2 M
2
! 1 þ e=2Qi 4
PMAX ¼ ð16Þ
2C0 1  e=2Qi where k2electrothermal ¼ p2 ="ðcp =H Þ.
 1  e=2Qi In the same way, the SSHI efficiency can be expressed
ROPT ¼ : ð17Þ as a function of Carnot efficiency as:
2C0 ! 1 þ e=2Qi
1 1þ
th, SSHI ¼ k2electrothermal th, carnot ð26Þ
4 1
COMPARISON WITH THE CARNOT
THERMODYNAMIC CYCLE where  ¼ e=2Qi .
Consequently, it is possible to greatly enhance
In this section, the efficiency of pyroelectric energy the energy conversion efficiency using the Series–
conversion is compared using both the standard and the SSHI interface, in particular for  values near 1.

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 Heat Energy Harvesting using Pyroelectric Material
×10−3
2.5
SSHI-series-simulation
SSHI-series-experimental
Standard-simulation
Standard -experimental
2
1.5
P (mW)
0.5
0
105
Figure 6. Theoretical and experimental harvested electrical power as a function of the load resistance (M ¼ 0.668C, f ¼ 0.5 Hz).
However, when assumption of weak coupling between
heat and electrical energies becomes false, Equation (22)
cannot be simplified to Equation (23).
For the most commonly used ferroelectric materials,
electrothermal coupling is very low, but coupling
can reach 15.5% with PMN-PT single crystals (Sebald
et al., 2006). However, these materials are relatively
expensive, and single crystals are only available in a
limited range of shapes and dimensions.
In this study, we worked with PVDF. Although it has
an electrothermal coupling (kelectrothermal) around 2.7%,
this low-cost material can be easily shaped in order to
facilitate its temperature variations. These advantages
make PVDF an attractive material for the considered
applications.
THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Experimental Setup
The experimental setup (Figure 1) includes an elec-
trical circuit for energy harvesting, the pyroelectric
material, a fan and its control system to apply airflow
with periodic temperature variation. In this experiment,
the pyroelectric material consists of 16 PVDF films
(100  20  0.11 mm3), electrically connected to each
other in parallel. The properties of PVDF film are
given in Table 1. The temperature of the airflow is
controlled with resistive heaters, and its frequency can
be adjusted between 0.1 and 1 Hz. Table 2 shows the
specifications of the experimental setup.
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269
106 107 108
R load (Ω)
The pyroelectric coefficient is necessary in order to
compare experimental results with the theoretical one.
The pyroelectric coefficient of PVDF film is p ¼ 24 
106 C/m2K (Capineri et al., 2000).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This section presents the theoretical and experimental
characteristics of the generator using the two interfaces
presented earlier. In the first experiments, the relation-
ship between power and load resistance for constant
temperature amplitude has been studied. The value of
optimal load resistance Ropt that leads to the maximum
power has been calculated.
A 0.9H inductor used in the Series–SSHI interface
leads to Qi ¼ 3. For 0.668C temperature amplitude at
0.5 Hz, the maximum harvested power for the Series–
SSHI interface is 2.1 mW, whereas it is 1.1 mW for the
standard circuit.
This experiment has been repeated for M ¼ 3.398C
at 0.5 Hz. In this case, the maximum power for the
Series–SSHI interface is 96 mW and 32 mW for the stan-
dard interface.
These experimental results confirm the theoretical
predictions for the Series–SSHI and the standard
techniques. These results are shown in Figures 6 and 7.
The thickness of PVDF film used in the experimental
prototype was 0.11 mm. Because of low capacity and low
frequency the optimal values of load Ropt in Figures 7
and 8 are very high (11.85 M for the standard interface
and 3.15 M for the Series–SSHI interface). This high
270 D. GUYOMAR ET AL.

0.1
SSHI-series-simulation
0.09 SSHI-series-experimental
Standard-simulation
0.08 Standard-experimental

0.07

0.06
P (mW)

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01

0
105 106 107 108
R load (Ω)

Figure 7. Theoretical and experimental harvested electrical power as a function of the load resistance (M ¼ 3.398C, f ¼ 0.5 Hz).

0.6 0.3
SSHI-series-simulation Standard-simulation
SSHI-series-experimental Standard-experimental
0.5 0.25

0.4 0.2

0.3 0.15
P (mW)
P (mW)

0.2 0.1

0.1 0.05

0 0

−0.1 −0.05
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

qM (°C) qM (°C)

Figure 8. Theoretical and experimental harvested electrical power Figure 9. Theoretical and experimental harvested electrical power
as a function of the amplitude temperature (f ¼ 0.2 Hz). as a function of the amplitude temperature (f ¼ 0.2 Hz).

output impedance raises the problem of power manage-
ment for energy harvesting devices, which have relatively
high voltage and very weak current. Moreover, the
control of temperature frequency may be difficult or even
impossible in practice, making it difficult to tune the load
resistance to an optimal value. These results in particular
lead to the conclusions that practical implementation of
pyroelectric microgenerators would be easier using
thinner PVDF films, in order to allow fast heat transfer
and high capacitance value.
The second part of this study analyzes the dependence
of microgenerator power on the temperature amplitude
for an optimal value of load resistance. Figures 8 and 9
show experimental and theoretical results of the
harvested power versus the temperature amplitude
variations for the Series–SSHI interface and the standard
interface, respectively. The maximum harvested power is
0.32 mW for the Series–SSHI interface and 0.16 mW for
the standard interface in the 78C temperature amplitude
at 0.2 Hz. These temperature variations may be achieved
using a cyclic pumping of caloric fluid between hot and
cold reservoirs. The pumping unit may require 51% of
the total produced energy, and producing temperature
variations of 1–208C at 2 Hz (Sklar, 2005).
This study leads to the conclusions that the key
parameters for increasing the level of harvested power
are the temperature amplitude M, the volume of active
material v, and the temperature frequency f.

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 Heat Energy Harvesting using Pyroelectric Material
Ideally, the temperature amplitude and its frequency
should be as high as possible. In practice, increase of these
parameters is difficult. The increase of the active material
volume leads to the search for a compromise between the
size of the device and its ability to follow ambient
temperature variations (amplitude and frequency).
Practically, the conversion efficiencies of the Series–
SSHI and the standard interface were very far from that
of the ideal Carnot cycle (0.05 and 0.02% of Carnot
efficiency, respectively). However, theoretically the
Series–SSHI interface could reach efficiencies near the
Carnot cycle by optimization of the factors k2electrothermal
and Qi that it is required to amplify the electrical field to
very high values which may be not realistic in practice.
From the point of view of material properties, single
crystals exhibit better characteristics than PVDF. For
instance, the energy conversion efficiency theoretically
reaches 1.6% of Carnot efficiency in the case of 51114
PMN-PT single crystal (Sebald et al., 2006), with:
p ¼ 1300  106 C=m2 K, " ¼ 1000 "0 ,
cp ¼ 0:3 J=g K, k2electrothermal ¼ 2:4%,  ¼ 0:6:
CONCLUSIONS
This study shows that a microgenerator composed
of 8 g of PVDF produces 0.32 mW power using the
Series-SSHI with 78C temperature amplitude and 0.2 Hz
frequency. This nonlinear processing technique leads to
200% power improvement compared to the ‘Standard’
interface.
This microgenerator has conversion efficiencies 0.02
and 0.05% of the Carnot cycle for the standard interface
and the Series–SSHI interface, respectively.
It should be noted that the electrothermal coupling
is a key parameter for energy conversion. Theoretical
predictions show that PMN-PT single-crystals could
strongly improve the presented results herein.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank M. Alain Chouvy for his
help in experimental set-up development.
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