Nemesis project to improve energy harvesting
12 Feb 2013
The Nemesis project aims to advance piezoelectric and ferroelectric systems
Bath University has received €2.27m from the European Research Council (ERC) Executive Agency to improve energy harvesting systems.
The funding will be used to set up a new world-leading centre for energy harvesting as part of the Nemesis project.
The Centre aims to create piezoelectric and ferroelectric energy harvesting systems capable of converting mechanical vibrations into electrical energy, thermal fluctuations into electrical energy and vibrations into chemical energy.
One work stream in the Centre will look at novel materials that are capable of harvesting the vibrations of machines or vehicles and converting the energy into electricity.
This electricity can then be used to power devices within a machine, such as damage sensors.
Another stream aims to develop new methods for water splitting to create clean-burning hydrogen fuel.
Professor Chris Bowen said: “As we continually strive to create safer and more efficient machines and vehicles, the need to power sensors that can safely sit in potentially very hot and hostile environments near the engine, where batteries would be unsafe or impractical, has increased.
“Clean energies are also a high priority for modern society, and through our research we aim to create nano-structured ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials that can be used to split water, creating clean, environmentally-friendly hydrogen fuel.
“Setting up a world-leading research centre here in the UK will put us at the forefront of this increasingly important field of work. The new Centre brings together experts in from different disciplines, including materials, physics, chemistry and electrical engineering, offering an ideal environment in which to develop new and innovative solutions to generating and harvesting energy.”
The Centre will fund visiting researchers at the University, and interaction with other leading academics working in ferroelectrics and energy harvesting such as Prof. John Wang of NUS, Singapore and Prof. Vitaly Topolov of Rostov State University.
