Self-powered real-time monitoring of environmental conditions by arrayed Al-air origmai fuel cell

Abstract

Continous environmental observation and communication networks are essential in daily life activities and these devices require relatively less and continuous power. Enabling a continous and stable power supply for these telemtery units, even in resource limited area, is a challenge in the recent times. In this work, an origami based arrayed Al-air Fuel Cell (A-aFCs) with porous ink-jetted cathode is developed to power the wireless network. In order to operate IoT sensor, a well-designed unique stacking configuration is adopted to boost the power output. The power output behaviour of four A-aFCs stacking strategies, such as 4 parallel (C1), 4 series (C2), 2 series/2 parallel (C3), 3 series/1 parallel (C4) and 3 parallel/1 series (C5), are investigated. This assembling method paves a way to charge the supercapacitor directly with the help of a in-house designed power management unit (PMU) with integrated Peak Power Tracking (PPT) and programmable voltage regulation. The power harvested from the A-aFCs is stored in a supercapacitor and used to power the Internet of things (IoT) module, which has an integrated transceiver and measures the ambient temperature.