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Our project aims to investigate a way to effectively produce energy from piezoelectric crystals. Piezoelectric materials produce a voltage when they are subjected to mechanical stress. The main application of this is pavement tiles with piezoelectric crystals inside them. When people walk on these tiles the crystals are compressed so they produce a voltage which is then collected. However, this requires the input of human energy. We believe by taking advantage of thermal expansion, mechanical stress can be created from unused energy to compress the crystals.
Our investigation is conducted by first growing potassium sodium tartrate tetrahydrate (KNaC4H4O6·4H2O), also known as Rochelle crystals. They are subjected to thermal expansion by heating water placed inside a balloon with the crystal inside a container above it. As the water expands, the crystal is pushed up into a dowel just resting on top of it, placing mechanical stress onto the crystal and causing it to produce a voltage.
As of right now we have results showing that our theory works. 501 mV was produced during indoor testing, where we heated the project and 80 mV produced outdoors, where the sun heated the project. However, Ireland isn’t the ideal climate to test our project, so we hope to be able to test our project in a warmer climate. We also had some problems with the balloon bursting and corroding our wires, so we are looking into what could be used instead for more efficient and green results.
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