Campus Units

Genetics, Development and Cell Biology

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

1-13-2017

Journal or Book Title

PloS ONE

Volume

12

Issue

1

First Page

e0170022

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0170022

Abstract

In 2008 the U.S. Department of Energy set a target of 20% wind energy by 2030. To date, induction-based turbines form the mainstay of this effort, but turbines are noisy, perceived as unattractive, a potential hazard to bats and birds, and their height hampers deployment in residential settings. Several groups have proposed that artificial plants containing piezoelectric elements may harvest wind energy sufficient to contribute to a carbon-neutral energy economy. Here we measured energy conversion by cottonwood-inspired piezoelectric leaves, and by a “vertical flapping stalk”—the most efficient piezo-leaf previously reported. We emulated cottonwood for its unusually ordered, periodic flutter, properties conducive to piezo excitation. Integrated over 0°–90° (azimuthal) of incident airflow, cottonwood mimics outperformed the vertical flapping stalk, but they produced << daW per conceptualized tree. In contrast, a modest-sized cottonwood tree may dissipate ~ 80 W via leaf motion alone. A major limitation of piezo-transduction is charge generation, which scales with capacitance (area). We thus tested a rudimentary, cattail-inspired leaf with stacked elements wired in parallel. Power increased systematically with capacitance as expected, but extrapolation to acre-sized assemblages predicts << daW. Although our results suggest that present piezoelectric materials will not harvest mid-range power from botanic mimics of convenient size, recent developments in electrostriction and triboelectric systems may offer more fertile ground to further explore this concept.

Comments

This article is from PloS ONE 12 (2017): e0170022, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170022. Posted with permission.

Rights

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Copyright Owner

McCloskey et al.

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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