Piezoelectric question. Can anyone please help?

[mochabubble]

My partner and I are doing an engineering project based on the fact that piezoelectric materials can generate an electric current. We were wondering if it was feasible to combine solar panals with some piezoelectric tiles in order to generate electricity "rain or shine." we were wondering if it would even work. Also, would building a piezoelectrically powered keyboard or cell phone be too trite for a science fair project? And would it be possible to capture the energy from sound waves with piezoelectricity to generate electricity perhaps at a loud rock concert? Thank you very much for your time.

[deleted-71709]

You have chosen a very interesting field of study. Piezoelectrics have played an important role in the modern world of technology for about the past 25 years, ever since scientists discovered how to make highly efficient piezoelectric materials using ceramics technology.

You wrote about "building a piezoelectrically powered keyboard". Did you mean you want to build a keyboard that generates electricity, or are you thinking about using piezoelectric principles to send keyboard signals to a computer? If you are thinking of the later idea, check out this web site: http://www.acaltechnology.com/datasheet ... ectric.pdf.

If you are thinking about generating power from the energy put into the keyboard, I know I have seen that idea on a TV documentary, but I can't remember where. I will investigate it further and see if I can find that reference. In the mean time, here is a patent that talks about just this thing: http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0960-1317 ... 8ad62914f9

Regarding using piezoelectics to generate power from rain drops, I think it is possible, but I believe the efficiency of piezoelectrics is too low to make this a viable approach. It takes a lot of force to get just a little electricity out of a piezoelectric crystal. You need to do some research on the basic characteristics of common piezoelectric materials. This appears to be a good reference for that: http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0960-1317 ... 9d81290430

Your idea of capturing sound energy to produce electricity is interesting, but again, I think the efficiency of the conversion would be so poor as to not make this a viable approach. The more you learn about the efficiency of piezoelectric devices,the more you will understand this.

I hope this helps.

Ed Neu
Buffalo, MN

[mochabubble]

Thanks so much for your reply! I was thinking about having a keyboard producing electricity to help power either a computer or laptop. I highly doubly it will have enough power to power a computer or laptop entirely, but it couldn't hurt, especially for a laptop that relies on a battery. I do know that the amount of power you get is minimal, but is there anyway to increase efficiency or no? There were some French scientists that did try to get electricity from rain power but I believe their conclusion was that it wasn't efficient enough.