Acoustic energy harvesting from trace gas analyzing sensor

In this study, a trace gas analyzing sensor is utilized for energy harvesting. The laser beam with a range of one meter is directed to the photo-acoustic cell and creates acoustic waves by absorbing gas molecules. The captured acoustic signal is converted into an electrical signal by the microphone and then processed by custom-designed electronic circuits to transform current to voltage, to amplify, and to reduce total harmonic distortion of the signal. Voltage multiplier (VM) is used at the end of the sensor circuit for energy harvesting to obtain DC voltage. Acquired resonance signal has multiple sinusoidal structure and contains harmonics so the effect of capacitance on VM's stage is analyzed and demonstrated that the mean value of DC has been boosted and the ripple has been reduced through high capacitance values. It is observed at the output of one to ten stages VM that the mean voltage increases from 8.5 V to 32.55 V and fit to third order polynomial and the average power rises from 72.23 mu W to 1.06 mW. Our results show that acoustic energy harvesting with a sensor has the potential to provide partial or complete electrical energy for the sensor used.