Porous pyroelectric material for waste heat harvesting

Abstract

The utilization of pyroelectric materials to harvest waste heat from the ambient environment has gained much interest. However, pyroelectric energy harvesting technology still faces the challenge of low output voltage. In this paper, a porous pyroelectric ceramic with 0.3 wt.% poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as the additive was prepared via a conventional solid-state reaction technique. Our experimental results indicated that the porous PMN–PMS–PZT:0.3PMMA ceramic had a decrease in both relative permittivity and volume heat capacity at a temperature of 44ˆ∘C, compared to that of the dense sample. Additionally, the porous ceramic demonstrated an enhanced voltage responsivity from 0.50 to 0.52 m2/C and a higher figure of merit from 0.64 to 0.65 nm3/J for energy harvesting, compared to the dense sample. When 0.3 wt.% PMMA was added, the voltage generated by the device increased by 17.01% due to the presence of pores, which suggests a potential application in the field of waste heat harvesting and sensing.