The energy harvester investigation in exercising by using the piezoelectric effect

Abstract Energy is important in everyday human life, for that reason, energy harvesting is one of the most important issues. Many countries have aging societies, exercise is promoted to keep people in good health in old age. This work focused on an integration of the energy harvesting and exercise. Therefore, this work was aimed at producing electrical energy from exercise shoes by using the piezoelectric effect. Different piezoelectric circuits; series, parallel and combination circuits, and types; Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) and ceramic or buzzer types, were investigated. Then, an energy harvesting prototype was built to charge ions to a capacitor by attaching the prototype to shoe pads. From the circuit comparison results, the parallel piezoelectric circuit provided the highest current density and this circuit was carried out in other experiments. Next, the comparison was made by applying both piezoelectric types into two separate parallel circuits with 2 pieces per circuit. The PZT circuit harvested the same amount of electrical power as the buzzer circuit, but the energy harvesting by the PZT circuit took less time at 15 mins to complete its harvest. Finally, the PZT circuit was installed on the shoe pads as a prototype and investigated for its capability. The experiment was carried out by an experimenter who wore the shoes with the prototype and walked at a constant speed of 1 km per hr. The experimental distances were 200, 400 and 600 m and the electric power were calculated accordingly. From the experimental results, walking with the constant speed could enable the PZT piezoelectric materials to produce electric power of electrical energy constantly because of its elastic ability which could tolerate mechanical energy applied to it and because the time used to harvest energy by its circuit is short. It could be concluded from the experiments that the more the distance, the more electric power. Therefore, this prototype proved to produce electrical energy from the piezoelectric effect in harvesting energy and could be further developed as a renewable energy harvester.