Flow Energy Harvester

Although large amounts of power are available from fluid flows, as evidenced by  wind turbines which are currently so ubiquitous at the large scale, turbine technology is not practical for miniature harvesters or harsh environment sensing due to the need for moving parts such as bearings and generators.  Many sensor and electronic applications have the opportunity to harvest energy from fluid flow yet no scalable, solid-state solution exists for tapping this energy dense resource.  For miniaturization of flow-based energy harvesters Prime has developed a revolutionary flow harvester based on fluidic oscillator-based capture of flow energy.  Prime flow harvester technology has been demonstrated in air flow to achieve 10 microWatt/cm3 power density or 1 mW total power generation in less than 40 m/s air flow.  In contrast to vibration based harvesters that are only useful at resonance conditions, Prime’s flow harvester can deliver good power generation over a wide range of flow rates.