Energy Harvesting from Raindrops using Piezoelectric Material

Team Members: Ethan Compton, Daniel Diggs, Suphassorn Eaksen, Padraic Flynn, Christian Irvin, James Richardson

Advisor: Dr. Sunghwan Jung

The Goal: Our goal is to test electrical output from two piezoelectric materials due to a raindrop impact, to design a lab-scale prototype to measure the amount of energy obtained from a raindrop, and to eventually construct an outdoor pilot system to harvest energy from rainfall.

Key Features: •Rain energy harvester acts as a supplement to other energy harvesters (Solar, Wind)

Deliverables: •A cost effective piezo-material with optimized geometry for energy harvesting.

•A rain simulator with adjustable parameters to be used for current and future research.

•A testing assembly and an optimized experiment design.

•A working energy harvester prototype to be tested for commercial use.

•A foundation for future research and product optimization in this field of renewable energy harvesting.