Mechanical energy harvesting using polyurethane/lead zirconate titanate composites

The microelectromechanical systems invade gradually the market with applications in many sectors of activity. Developing these micro-systems allows deploying wireless sensor networks that are useful to collect, process and transmit information from their environments without human intervention. In order to keep these micro-devices energetically autonomous without using batteries because they have a limited lifespan, an energy harvesting from ambient vibrations using electrostrictive polymers can be used. These polymers present best features against inorganic materials, as flexibility and low cost. The aims of this paper are manifold. First of all, we made elaboration of the polyurethane/lead zirconate titanate films of 100 mu m thickness using a lead zirconate titanate-volume fraction of 50%. Therefore, we did an observation of the lead zirconate titanate grains dispersion and the electrical characterization of the polyurethane-50 vol% lead zirconate titanate composites. Finally, a detailed study of the electromechanical transduction, for the polyurethane-50 vol% lead zirconate titanate unpolarized and polarized composites sustained to the sinusoidal mechanical strain with amplitude of 1.5% and at very low frequencies (f=2 [Hz] and f=4 [Hz]) and static electric field (E-dc=10 [V/mu m]) or without it (E-dc=0 [V/mu m]) has been presented.