This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 12090, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents and Conference Committee list.

Flexible Organic Photovoltaic Solar Cells (FOPSC) have drawn intense attention due to their advantages over competing solar cell technologies. The method utilized to deposit as well as to integrate solutions and processed materials, manufacturing organic solar cells by the Electrodeposition System, has been presented in this research. The FOPSC Device constructed in this work is electrochromic device with solar cell are the base Poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), PEDOT:PSS, Poly(3-hexyl thiophene, P3HT, Phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester, PCBM and Polyaniline, PANI, were deposited in Indium Tin Oxide, ITO, and characterized by Electrical Measurements and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). In addition, the thin film obtained by the deposition of PANI, prepared in perchloric acid solution, was identified through PANI-X1. The maximum process temperature was 120°C, which corresponds to the baking of the active polymeric layer. The result obtained by electrical Measurements has demonstrated that the PET/ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:PCBM Blend/ PANI-X1/ITO/PET layer presents the characteristic curve of standard solar cell after spin-coating and electrodeposition. The Thin film obtained by electrodeposition of PANI-X1 on P3HT/PCBM Blend was prepared in perchloric acid solution. Furthermore, these flexible organic photovoltaic solar cells presented power conversion efficiency of 12% and the inclusion of the PANI-X1 layer reduced the effects of degradation on these organic photovoltaic panels induced by solar irradiation. The thermal effects from ultraviolet irradiation under the device’s surface, in the irradiation simulator chamber, demonstrated a 15% reduction in the device’s lifetime. The inclusion of the PANI-X1 layer reduced the effects of degradation these organic photovoltaic panels induced for solar irradiation, a fact that also observed in the irradiation in the simulation chamber. In Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) these studies reveal that the surface of PANI-X1 layers is strongly conditioned by the surface morphology of the dielectric.

There is worldwide a strong effort to increase energy and power density on battery level for future electric vehicles. In addition, the demand for cost efficient, reliable, and long lifetime lithium-ion batteries (LIB) is continuous increasing. For the development of next-generation LIB a new scientific-technical approach was established by merging the 3D battery concept with high mass-loaded electrodes. The 3D battery concept is realized by laser structuring of electrodes and has a huge impact on high rate capability and lifetime of lithium-ion batteries. In frame of process up-scaling, ultrafast laser ablation including roll-to-roll processing was established for thick film electrodes without damaging the active material. Post-mortem studies using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy were carried out to study degradation processes and to illustrate the formation of new lithium diffusion pathways in 3D electrodes. The studies were performed with lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide as cathode and graphite/silicon as anode. Silicon has the benefit to provide one order of magnitude higher gravimetric energy density than the common used graphite. However, a bottleneck of silicon is its huge volume change of 300% during electrochemical cycling. High mechanical tension may arise, which results in crack formation, continuous formation of solid electrolyte interphase, and subsequent electrode delamination. It was shown that batteries with laser structured electrodes benefit from a homogenous lithiation and delithiation, reduced compressive stress, and overall improved electrochemical properties in comparison to batteries with unstructured electrodes. A new manufacturing tool is presented for next-generation battery production to overcome current limitations in electrode design and cell performance.

In this paper, a novel heat energy harvesting system that is constructed by a combination of thermoelectric generators (TEG) and thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cells that are configured to operate in parallel is presented. The resulting hybrid TEG-TPV heat energy harvester can therefore generate significantly more electrical energy than is possible for a given TEG surface area. The hybrid TEG-TPV heat energy harvester is designed to generate electrical energy from sources with highly varying and high temperatures. The hybrid harvester is designed to provide a constant temperature gradient to TEG members and allow the TPV cells to operate within their allowable temperature range.

In this paper the authors present a novel application for electromagnetic kinetic energy harvesting focusing on farm animal wearables used in precision livestock farming IoT technologies. Converting the locomotion of domesticated animals, like cow steps or cow ear movement, into electrical energy with inertial kinetic energy harvesters hasn’t been fully researched thus far. The kinetic energy converted this way could potentially be used to power smart farming wearables used for location, disease or lifecycle events detection, thus eliminating the need for finite lifetime batteries. In this work, a proof-of-concept of a cow step energy harvester is presented in detail. At first a short review of the state of the art is given which formed the basis of the research, followed by locomotion logging experiments. Finite element modelling of the kinetic energy harvester is used for parameter analysis and initial design followed by laboratory testing and available power estimation. Finally, the construction of the wearable harvester is presented together with custom wearable measuring equipment. Field experiments were performed with free grazing Finncattle at a dairy farm in Tampere, Finland, which proved that a cow step based kinetic energy harvester can be used to power a Bluetooth beacon.

We study the non-exponential, power-law charge/voltage-time behavior of a supercapacitor when it is discharged into a constant resistive load. The standard evolution equation dn(t)=dt = -λn(t) where λ is an inverse time constant and n(t) can represent here charge or voltage is modifed instead to be dn(t)=dt = -λ[n(t)]^q relating the rate of change of n(t) to a power law function of n(t). This leads to the q-exponential function which shows much better fitting capability to the experimental results obtained on a commercial capacitive device when compared with the traditional exponential decay.

Heat transfer improvement has gained significant importance in the recent decades. In this regard, it is preferred to enhance the thermophysical properties of the fluids that affecting the heat transfer characteristics. To reach this goal, nanofluids have been introduced to be applied in thermal devices due to their relatively higher thermal conductivity that can cause remarkable augmentation in convective heat transfer. Thermal conductivity of these types of fluids is influenced by some elements including the temperature and volume fraction. Considering this fact, these factors must be considered for modeling this property of nanofluids. In the present article, thermal conductivity of the nanofluids with SiC particles is modeled by using artificial neural network as an intelligent method. It is observed that thermal conductivity of the nanofluids is forecasted with high precision. Mean Squared Error (MSE) of the model in optimal architecture was around 2.65× 10⁻⁵, for this network the R² is 0.9986 revealing significant closeness of the forecasted data and corresponding experimental values.

In this work, a hybrid structure is designed that combines both alpha-photovoltaic (APV) and alpha-voltaic (AV) effect. A ZnS phosphor generates photons when exposed to alpha particles. The photons are captured and converted to electronhole pairs (EHP) in an underlying layer of InGaP PV (APV). Some of the alpha particles propagate to the InGaP directly producing EHP in InGaP (AV). Numerical simulations using SRIM compared the power output in the InGaP PV through a parametric study of phosphor thickness. The ionization energy deposited in the ZnS layer was compared to the ionization energy in the InGaP. The ZnS phosphor thickness was varied to maximize electrical power output. The ZnS phosphor also performs the function of slowing down alpha particles so those alphas that penetrate to the InGaP are less energetic and damage is reduced to the InGaP PV. Initial measurements were performed using current-voltage (IV) curves during exposure to alpha particles from a National Electrostatics Pelletron ion accelerator. The energy deposited into the phosphor and PV materials is calculated from SRIM simulations. Simulation results optimizing phosphor thickness in this hybrid APV and AV structure generates 4.3% efficient energy conversion for radioisotope battery application producing greater than 500 μW(electrical) can be generated per 100mCi of ²⁴¹Am

Presented in this paper is the development of a novel class of heat energy harvesting systems that are designed to generate electrical energy from sources with highly varying temperatures that can be significantly higher than thermoelectric generators (TEG) can withstand. This class of TEG-based heat energy harvesters are designed to: (a) apply a constant temperature gradient to TEGs of the system while heat source temperature is varying and can be significantly higher than TEGs can withstand (thus, the total energy output is maximized); and (b) provides a passively operated switching mechanism for the protection of TEGs from overheating.

In this paper, the development of a novel technology for direct and rapid heating of battery electrolyte at low temperatures and maintaining the battery temperature at its optimal performance level is presented. The technology has been extensively tested on a wide range of primary and secondary batteries at temperatures as low as -54 deg. C without causing any damage to the batteries. The technology is applicable to almost all primary and secondary batteries, such as Lithium-ion, Lithiumpolymer, NiMH and lead-acid batteries. The technology is also applicable to super-capacitors and has been used to rapidly heat super-capacitors at temperatures as low as -54 deg. C without any damage.