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A novel battery charger operated from random sound sources or air pressure

Conference Paper · May 2014

DOI: 10.1109/ICIEV.2014.6850683

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 A Novel Battery Charger Operated from Random
Sound Sources or Air Pressure.
G. R. Ahmed Jamal, Hamidul Hassan*, Amitav Das, Jannatul Ferdous and Sharmin A. Lisa
University of Asia Pacific
Dhaka, Bangladesh
*hamidul.hassan1989@gmail.com
Abstract— Design and implementation of a novel cell phone
charger using renewable energy is reported in this work.
Conventional cell phone charger takes main line ac source as
input, then rectify it and step it down to charge the battery. The
cumulative power taken per day from the main line by all the
mobile phone users over the world or in a single county is not a
small amount. So, if there is alternative way of charging mobile
batteries, a significant amount of power can be saved. Here,
random sound energy or air pressure is proposed as a new source
of renewable energy which can be easily used to charge a mobile
phone battery through suitable energy conversion circuit.
Piezoelectric material is used here as the transducer to convert
sound energy or air pressure into electric energy. The produced
electric energy is then processed through simple circuit to make
suitable output which can directly charge any commonly used
cell phone battery. The proposed set up is simple, portable and
especially useful in rural areas where there is no electric power at
all. It is also helpful during natural disaster when electric power
may not be available in a particular area. The performance of
the circuit for different frequencies of sound was tested. Some
ways to improve the overall performance of this circuit were also
prescribed.
Keywords—Renewable charger, Phone charger, Piezoelectric
material, Sound Energy.Sound conversion
I. INTRODUCTION
Cell phones are now most elementary device in everyday
life. Peoples from every age, section, gender or profession are
using it in their daily activities of life. It is reported that, there
are 4.1 billion users of cell phones in the world, which is 60%
of the world’s population. According to latest BTRC report,
total number of mobile subscribers in Bangladesh becomes
105 millions by June, 2013. This means cell phones are
becoming the most important personal communication device
[1]. All kinds of cell phones use small rechargeable battery
which takes charge from available ac power through portable
mobile battery charger. Charging its battery is a crucial task
for the cell phone as without charge this device becomes
useless in all aspects. According to the International Energy
Agency, in October 2011, 1.4 billion people could not use cell
phone properly due to the lack of electricity. Still a large part
of rural areas is out of electricity in third world countries like
Bangladesh. Also during natural disasters, like tsunami or
earthquakes, power outages mayl happen for days. On those
moments, communication is very essential for life whereas
cell phones become useless that time due to the lack of power.
Another issue is, every day we have to use approximately one
unit (3.70~ 4.0 Watt/hour) electricity from National Grid to
charge our mobile phones. It shows that we consume 4.1
billion Unit [1] or 4100 MW electricity everyday all over the
world only for mobile charging. So if there is any way to save
at least 50% from this then we also can save a large amount of
fuel and their cost. In this sense any renewable source to
charge mobile battery will be a great help in saving national
grid electricity.
Use of Renewable energy in charging mobile battery is not
a new concept. Recent advances in energy conversion have
shown a great hope in this measure. In 2012, John
Therampilly from California Polytechnic State University
presented his project on mobile charger that can take charge
from multiple renewable sources of energy [3]. There they
proposed solar, wind and heat due to their availability. Here,
we propose a new source of energy namely sound or air
pressure which can be easily used to charge cell phone battery.
Multiple types of sounds are often produced around us
from various sources. These random sounds play no role
except producing noises for us. In this work, random sound
energy and flow of air around us is treated as a source of
electric power after their efficient conversion through suitable
transducer.
The objective of this paper is to present an effective
method for producing usable electric power to charge the
battery from available sound energy around us from noises.
Piezoelectric material is one of the most effective sound
sensors [4]. The way it works is that the mechanical energy of
sound or air pressure is applied directly to a crystal with strong
piezoelectric characteristics. The piezoelectric crystal will
generate a small amount of voltage in response to the
application of mechanical energy. The capacity of
piezoelectric materials to receive any vibration and to convert
that into electric signal attracted many researchers who tried to
implement circuits and systems for converting pressure and
vibrations into electric power [5-11]. An idea was researched
by DARPA in the United States in a project called Energy
Harvesting, which includes an attempt to power battlefield
equipment by piezoelectric generators embedded in soldiers'
boots [5, 6]. However, these energy harvesting sources by
association have an impact on the body. DARPA's effort to
harness 1–2 watts from continuous shoe impact while walking
were abandoned due to the impracticality and the discomfort
from the additional energy expended by a person wearing the
shoes . Other energy harvesting ideas through piezoelectric
materials include harvesting the energy from human
movements in train stations or other public places [6, 8] by
laying piezoelectric materials under floor mats, carpets and
tiles in those places. A similar idea was used in some night
clubs of Europe where crystals were laid underneath the dance
floor to generate electricity by which they could power their
strobes and stereos [9]. Vibrations from industrial machinery
or from the machines in the gym or the finger pressure during
each stroke in a keyboard can also be harvested by
piezoelectric materials to charge batteries for backup supplies
or for low power microprocessors and wireless radios [9-11].
All these reports show the potential of piezoelectric
materials in producing usable electrical power. It can be noted
that, all these possible applications utilize the sensitivity of
piezoelectric materials to any kind of pressure or vibration.
This voltage depends on piezoelectric crystal size, Thickness
and the force provide on it. Cell phone battery charging
directly from available sound energy or natural air pressure
through piezoelectric transducers is a relatively new concept.
It will be useful in daily use and can give a new source of
green energy.
II. PROCEDURE AND RESULT
The goal here is to design a portable cell phone battery
charger that uses sound or air pressure as source of energy. It
can be used in disaster affected areas or where there is no
electricity from the main grid. Sound or air pressure applied
on piezoelectric transducer as mechanical strain and electrical
charges will be produced on the faces of the crystal.
In a piezoelectric material, total induced charge Q is
directly proportional to the applied force F, given by the
relation, Q = kF, where k is a piezoelectric constant
Here direct voltage from piezoelectric transducer is very
few (200 mV – 2 V). Also, the nature of the produced electric
signal is alternating. So, we need to amplify and rectify it to
get a reasonable output DC voltage which may charge a
rechargeable mobile battery.
We have designed several circuits for effective conversion
of sound energy into electrical power. We tried and tested all
the designed circuits and elevated from one step to other to get
improved result. One such design is to use supercapacitor for
instant storage of sound energy and a Quadrupler circuit to
amplify the DC voltage level is shown in Fig. 1. The flow
chart of the conversion steps are illustrated in Fig. 2.
Figure 1: Conversion Circuit of sound or air pressure into electrical power.
Figure 2. Block diagram showing the full process of transform a battery
charger from sound or vibration of air.
Figure 3. Charging a rechargeable mobile battery 3.7 volt DC (700 mA)
by using quadrapuller output set up.
In this proposed design, available sound source or natural
air pressure was used to generate small electric power through
piezoelectric transducers. The produced outpur voltage level
varied from 200 mV to 2V depending on air pressure or sound
intensity. LM386 Op-amp power amplifier was used to
amplify the produced voltage level. We got 4.0 AC output
voltages from this Op-Amp with biasing voltage of 5V. The
output of amplifier was then fed to the input of a voltage
multiplier (here, Quadrupler) circuit in order to increase the
produced voltage level. The resultant voltage at output of the
Quadrupler circuit was measured to be around 11.2 volt which
can now be used to charge a suitable Rechargeable mobile DC
battery, as shown in Fig. 3.
Output of the voltage Quadrupler circuit was 11.2 volt
with 65 mA from 118 dB sound which was only 1.14 volt
without sound. To charge a mobile battery with it, a
conventional rechargeable mobile phone battery of 3.7 Volt
was discharged down to 0.4 volt. A resistance was used
between charger and battery to limit the current and to drop
the charger voltage down to battery level. After charging starts
by keeping the sound source on, battery output was observed
to reach 2.1 volt only after 3 minutes. Within 20 minutes,
battery charge goes to 3.68 volt, thus become fully charged.
Sound and air is wide range activity in everywhere. For
use this charger there are lots of scope in surrounding.
Railway station, Bus, Airport, Construction Building, Boiler
room, Generator room, crowded area, high air flow zone is
very much effective area for use this charger. Piezoelectric
transducer is very much sensitive for his internal structure.
Just few contribution of vibration of air can change its
geometrical alignment of electron that effect makes a voltage
as output.
The one of the main target of this project was to design the
final product containing all these components but still remain
light weight so as to become portable. We were able to house
 TABLE I. QUADRUPLER CIRCUIT OUTPUT VOLTAGE FOR DIFFERENT
DISTANCES AND INTENSITY OF SOUND SOURCE IN OUTDOOR

Distance from Sound Output Voltage for sound from a

sound sources intensity 3- cylinder construction
(inch ) (dB) piling machine
(Volt)
2 108.7 11.48
3 107.8 10.81
4 107.1 10.70
Figure 4. Compact Charger design and accessories.
5 107.1 10.62
all components of this circuit inside a case equivalent to the 6 106.2 10.51
size of the case of a conventional small mobile battery
8 105.9 10.28
charger.
10 104.4 10.13
We also tested our circuits by varying the frequency of the
12 104.1 9.99
sound source. We found our circuit sensitive to frequency of
the sound source. This was not unexpected as piezoelectric 14 103.6 9.80
elements are frequency sensitive. The thickness of the active 16 103.3 9.73
piezoelectric element is determined by the desired frequency
18 103 9.65
of the transducer. A thin wafer element vibrates with a wave
length that is twice of its thickness. Piezoelectric crystals are 20 102.9 9.59
cut to a thickness that is 1/2 the desired radiated wavelength. 24 102.9 9.54
The higher the frequency of the transducer, the thinner will be
28 102.8 9.41
the active element. The primary reason that high frequency
contact transducers are not produced is because the element is 36 102.6 8.8
very thin and too fragile. We observed that, for the 48 100.8 7.43
piezoelectric element used in our circuit, output was highest 60 99.3 7.23
when sound frequency reaches to around 2 kHz after which it
remain stable up to frequency 10 kHz, and then started to 78 97.6 6.73
decrease. Normally, frequency of sound around us ranges
from 100 Hz to 10 kHz frequency, which is good enough for
our circuit. We checked our circuit in different outdoor spots
and got satisfactory performance. Data from one such outdoor
spot is given in Table I where the sound source was the noises
from construction piling machine. It can be easily observed
from this Table that even at 78 inch distant from the sound
source, the intensity of the sound is good enough to generate
an output of 6.73 volt which is good enough to charge the
rechargeable 3.7 volt battery of a cell phone. Fig. 5 (a) and (b)
shows the plot of Quadrupler output and sound intensity
against distance from sound source, as given in Table I.
There are a number of ideas through which the efficiency
of this process can be improved further. If piezoelectric
transducers can be suitably placed inside and outside of cell (a) (b)
phone casing and the conversion circuit can be housed inside Figure 5. Plot of (a) Sound intensity vs distance from source, (b)
the mobile phone, then it can be a novel solution of battery Produced voltage vs distance from source.
charging. In such set up, battery will keep charging
continuously from random sounds around it. Most
importantly, when the user talks over his mobile, sound from
his voice will convert into electric power through this set up,
thus will compensate at least some percent of the daily use of
battery power for conversation.
Efficiency of this set up can also be increased by
increasing air or sound pressure mechanically. It can be done
by using horn as shown in Fig. 6.
(a) (b)
When air flows into the horn, it automatically gets Figure 6: Increasing air pressure mechanically by customized horn,
compressed due to narrow shape of the horn and its pressure (b) Placement of transducer with horn.
increases. If piezoelectric material is placed near narrow outlet
of horn, it generates an electrical potential or voltage [3] John John Therampilly, Energy harvesting from multiple sources for
proportional to the magnitude of the increased air pressure. If Battery charging. March 2012.
[4] Robert John Littrell, ―High Performance Piezoelectric MEMS
designed properly, it may give very effective output. Microphones‖, Dissertation of Doctor of Philosophy (Mechanical
One shortcoming of this work is we did not get Engineering), The University of Michigan, 2010.
[5] Takeuchi M, Matsuzawa S, Tairaku K, Takatsu C. Piezoelectric
piezoelectric transducer with high conversion efficiency. generator as power supply for RFID-tags and applications, Proc. IEEE
Output of the piezoelectric material varies depending on its Ultrasonics Symposium, New York City, USA, pp. 2558–2561, 28–31
dimension and material used. For example, barium titanate October 2007.
(BaTiO3) piezoelectric transducer disc of 1 cm2 outer surface [6] T. Dikshit, D. Shrivastava, A. Gorey, A. Gupta, P. Parandka, S. Katiyal,
area and 1 mm thickness can give 14 mV from 10 gm force if ―Energy Harvesting via Piezoelectricity‖ , proceedings of the 4th
National Conference; INDIACom-2010, 25 – 26 February, 2010.
piezo. Though, by creating pressure our piezoelectric disc can [7] Roundy S., Wright P. K. and Rabaye J., "A. study of low level
give up to 8 volt directly from its surface but the current rating vibrations as a power source for wireless sensor nodes", Computer
is very low because of its thickness and area, hence the Communications 26, pp.1131–1144, 2003.
resultant power from a single piezoelectric disc was also low. [8] Richard, Michael Graham "Japan: Producing Electricity from Train
For a piezoelectric transducer with high conversion efficiency, Station Ticket Gates". Tree Hugger. Discovery Communications, LLC,
both the produced voltage and current will be high, thus no August 2006.
[9] U. K. Singh and R. H. Middleton, "Piezoelectric power scavenging of
LM 386 Op-amp amplifier would be required to amplify the mechanical vibration energy", Australian Mining Technology
piezoelectric output. Consequently, no biasing voltage is Conference, 2-4, pp. 111-118, October 2007.
needed and piezoelectric output can be directly fed to the [10] Steven R. Anton and Henry A. Sodano, ―A review of power harvesting
Quadrupler circuit and output of this circuit could directly using piezoelectric materials (2003-2006), Smart Materials and
charge the rechargeable mobile battery. This will reduce the Structures 16, 2007.
[11] Y. C. Shu and I. C. Lien, "Analysis of power output for piezoelectric
size of the circuit as well as will increase the efficiency of the energy harvesting systems", Smart Materials and Structures 15, pp.
charger. 1499-1512, 2006.
[12] Education Resources in Community College about Ultrasonic
Equipment Trans , piezotransducers, NDT Research center.
III. CONCLUSION
In this work, a novel cell phone charger is designed and
tested using a new source renewable energy namely sound
energy or air pressure. Here, random sound energy or air
pressure is proposed as a new source of renewable energy
which can be easily used to charge a mobile phone battery
through suitable energy conversion circuit. Piezoelectric
material is used here as the transducer to convert sound energy
or air pressure into electric energy. The produced electric
energy is then processed through simple circuit to make
suitable output which can directly charge any commonly used
cell phone battery. A conventional 3.7 volt cell phone battery
was observed to get fully charged within 20 minutes through
the proposed circuit. The cumulative power taken per day
from the main line by all the conventional mobile phone
chargers over the world or in a single county is not a small
amount. So, the proposed alternative way of charging mobile
batteries may save a significant amount of power. The
proposed set up is simple, portable and especially useful in
rural areas where there is no electric power at all. It is also
helpful during natural disaster when electric power may not be
available in a particular area. The performance of the circuit
for different frequencies of sound was tested and it was
observed that the circuit works well for frequencies usually
available around us from different noises. The circuit was
tested in outdoor for some specific sound source and
performance was found satisfactory. Some electrical and
mechanical ways to improve the overall performance of the
proposed circuit were also prescribed in the last part of this
work.

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[1] Tryhorn, Chris. The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 02 Mar.
2009. Web. 02 Mar. 2012.
[2] Seminar on ―Energy poverty: The missing Millennium Development
Goal‖, International. Energy Agency, March, 2012.

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