UAveiro researchers create high-efficiency clean energy generator

A team of researchers, including four from Universidade de Aveiro (UAveiro), has developed an adaptive rotational electromagnetic generator that is an alternative to piezoelectric and triboelectric generators, as it has a much higher performance than current rotational electromagnetic generators. The study on the development of this device was recently published in "Nature Communication Engineering", one of the journals of the renowned scientific publishing group Nature.

According to the researchers, the development of this generator constitutes "a promising contribution to the generation of clean and sustainable energy directly from the environment, in order to meet growing energy needs, reduce environmental pollution and electrically power numerous microdevices autonomously, such as sensors and actuators, medical devices, among others".

They explain that although there have been many developments and scientific advances in the design of piezoelectric and triboelectric generators to date, they have only been able to produce electrical currents on a micro or nano scale, even for multidirectional mechanical excitations, which significantly limits their application. In addition, current electromagnetic generators have very limited power densities and yields, largely due to the lack of adaptability of these generators to variations in mechanical energy sources, they stress.

Thus, the innovative alternative proposed by this group of researchers consists of using a dynamic and autonomous switching strategy for the electromagnetic generator coils, according to the variations in mechanical excitations. Theoretical and laboratory results have shown efficiencies of up to 90 percent, including for three-dimensional mechanical excitations.  

The study also highlights the importance of continuing to explore the development of new adaptive electromagnetic generators with more complex architectures, as well as the development of more sophisticated controllers to improve the performance of the coil switching system.

This was a multidisciplinary project involving researchers Pedro Rolo (doctoral student) and Marco Santos (professor) from the Centre for Mechanical Technology and Automation (TEMA), João Vidal and Andrei Kholkin from the Aveiro Institute of Materials (CICECO), i3N - Institute for Nanostructures, Nanomodelling and Nanofabrication of Aveiro, and also LASI - Associated Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, which also includes the UAveiro (among other higher education institutions) and is based at the Guimarães campus of the University of Minho.

This research followed the results achieved in the project "The new era in autonomous power generation systems from biomechanical sources for multifunctional implantable medical devices" (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031132), led by Marco Santos and Andrei Kholkin, in which the concept of an adaptive electromagnetic generator was first developed.

You can read the article here: Self-adaptive rotational electromagnetic energy generation as an alternative to triboelectric and piezoelectric transductions | Communications Engineering (nature.com)