Executive Summary : | To solve present and future energy challenges, researchers all over the globe are working to find cleaner energy resources, which are affordable, renewable and sustainable. The idea is to harness the energy from unused ambient external green sources already present in the environment like vibrations, magnetic field and light into electricity. The energy harvesting devices that capture these sources, will be able to provide continuous power to Internet of Things (IoT) systems, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and other devices. The potential energy harvesters include piezoelectric, magnetoelectric (M-E) and thermoelectric etc., which have been demonstrated for this purpose. Among them, M-E coupling in multiferroic composites (combination of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic material), which exhibit ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity at the same time, have piqued the interest of researchers, owing to their promising technological applications in energy harvesting devices. Accordingly, the aim of the present work will be to fabricated the energy harvesting devices based on magnetoelectric multiferroic composites of polymer/BCZT-polymer/CFO. The two designs have been proposed for this purpose. The first design will consist of nano-fibers of CoFe₂O₄(CFO) and Ba₀.₈₅Ca₀.₁₅Ti₀.₉Zr₀.₁O₃ (BCZT), which will be uniformly dispersed in the matrix of polyvinylidene-co-trifluoroethylene (P(VDF–TrFE)). In the second design, the laminates/thin films will be fabricated. In this, the central layer will be composed of BCZT nano-fibers dispersed in P(VDF–TrFE) polymer matrix, whose upper and lower surfaces will be joined by other two layers consisting of CFO nano-fibres dispersed in PVDF polymer matrix. The fabricated device will be checked for their energy harvesting performance. It also holds great potential for new functionalities and phenomena that can be expected from the interactions between nano-fibres and polymer matrix. The present work will be extended to energy harvester devices based on multi-energy harvester architecture to simultaneously capture the green sources already present in the environment (vibrations, magnetic field and light etc). |