i4energy: The Printing of Energy Scavenging and Storage Devices

Speaker: James Evans, UC Berkeley Abstract: For some years there has been the dream of scavenging energy from the environment to power such devices as wireless ubiquitous sensors. It is clear that this objective is more easily realized if some of the energy can be stored for times when the device is operating at high power. A related energy storage issue is at the other end of the size scale: wind farms or solar energy installations. Thermoelectric generators as harvesting devices and batteries/capacitors are the focus of this presentation. Commercial versions of these devices are, of course, available but are frequently too large or too costly for the application. We report on research aimed at facilitating the manufacture of small, inexpensive TEGs and storage devices by printing. Also described are plans for large-scale printed energy storage that might be suitable for renewable electric power. Part of the Spring 2011 i4Energy Seminar Series. Live broadcast at mms://media.citris.berkeley.edu/webcast. Questions can be sent via Yahoo IM to username: citrisevents. All talks may be viewed on our YouTube channel The schedule for the spring i4energy series is at http://www.citris-uc.org/events/i4ene....