Micropelt, a Germany-based thermoelectric components manufacturer in collaboration with IMST, a low power wireless solutions provider, has announced the availability of the TE-CORE/RF – a self-sustaining, thermo-powered wireless sensor kit for use in maintenance-free actuators and wireless sensors, including smart metering, remote sensing, industrial process control, thermal event logging and wireless sensor networks.
The ROHS-complaint sensor features an embedded thermogenerator that is capable of converting heat thermoelectrically into electricity. A temperature difference of 18°F (10°C) between the air temperature and a warm surface enables the iM222A ZigBee network processor, developed by IMST and featuring the Z-stack protocol developed by Texas Instruments, to transmit information every 2 s. The temperature difference and the output voltage are calculated by the internal sensors of the TE-CORE/RF evaluation kit. The measurements are transmitted using a USB transceiver stick to a PC, where the GUI software records and monitors historical and momentary data. The TE-Power SCOPE software helps in determining in real-time, the simulated charge progress of a battery or capacitor, the power budget, data-logger functions as well as the momentary electric and thermal status values.
From 150 µW to 10 mW of harvesting power is made available depending on the heatsink efficiencies and the temperature difference. Energy comparable to three or four AA batteries is generated by a constant 25°C delta T.
The Vice President – Business Development at Micropelt, Burkhard Habbe explained that the TE-CORE/RF has been developed to carry out pilot studies and provide small series products with minimal engineering to ensure heat flow throughout an environmentally proof housing.
Source: http://www.micropelt.com