Characterising materials for energy-harvesting technology

Imagine a ventilation in a building, for example, that makes millions of turns a day venting rooms. If these rotations could translate into energy, it would probably become one of the most economical ways of generating energy. Enerbee, a start-up developing energy-harvesting technology is precisely working on this. Its scientists discovered the ESRF in a conference and have subsequently carried out several experiments. 

“We are delighted with the first results”, explains Sophie Bouat, senior material expert at Enerbee. She and her colleagues studied the heart of the device they have developed to trigger the sensors, which, ultimately, are monitored wireless thanks to the harvested energy. “We wanted to analyse the failure mode of the prototype, and it turns out that the experiments have answered all the questions we had”, she adds.

From various energy sources, the ENERBEE microgenerator emits energy peaks that are harvested through our power management, thus allowing to monitor sensors and/or to transmit data wireless. Credits: Enerbee.

Despite being located in Grenoble, like the ESRF, Enerbee scientists only considered experiments at the ESRF after discovering the facility in the framework of the CARAC conference, which aimed to show prospective clients what the ESRF could offer. After some successful feasibility tests, funded by the EU grant CALIPSO plus, Enerbee bought some beamtime.

Top image: Maxime Hubert testing the Enerbee prototype on ID19.