An insight into thermal and vibration cyclic energy harvesting using ferroelectric ceramics

This article reviews the basics of ferroelectric energy harvesting cycles based on thermal fluctuation and mechanical confinement. In this context, five cycles (Olsen cycle, Clamped Olsen cycle, Electro-Mechanical cycle, Thermally Biased Electro-Mechanical cycle and New Power cycle) are studied for two different compositions (0.94Bi1/2Na1/2TiO3–0.06BaTiO3: BNT–6BT; 0.91(Bi1/2Na1/2)TiO3–0.07BaTiO3–0.02K0.5Na0.5NbO3: BNT-BT-KNN;) which represents two distinct classes (based on domain wall rotation/motion) of ferroelectric materials. These can be classified as the composition with dominating impact of mechanical forces while the other is with ascendant thermal effects over the domain wall behavior.