A Flexible Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Simultaneously Scavenging Mechanical Energy of Fish Movement and Impact Energy of Water Flow

This paper presents a fish wearable piezoelectric energy harvester that simultaneously harvests the mechanical energy of fish movement and the impact energy of water flow. The flexible energy harvester is fabricated by transferring 2 µm-thick PbZr 0.52 Ti 0.48 O 3 (PZT) layer from a silicon substrate to a spin-coated polyimide (PI) film via a novel ZnO release process. The performance of the as-fabricated energy harvester is evaluated under periodic bending motions and impact loading to simulate the fish movement and water flow impact. The open-circuit voltage of the energy harvester reaches 2.3 V under a strain of 1% at 1 Hz. The maximum voltage is approximately 0.3 V under a pressure of 82.6 kPa at 1 Hz. The experimental results are in good agreement with our theoretical analysis. As a future work, the flexible energy harvester will be used in self-powered fish tags.