On Harvesting Energy from Tree Trunks for Environmental Monitoring

This work describes an experimental study on the possibilities of harvesting energy from tree trunks in order to power sensor nodes for environmental monitoring, particularly in wild forests. As the trunk of a living tree can be divided into isothermal subvolumes, which are generally referred to as...

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Main Authors:	Cleonilson P. Souza, Fabrício B. S. Carvalho, Filype A. N. Silva, Hening A. Andrade, Nathália de V. Silva, Orlando Baiocchi, Ivan Müller
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	SAGE Publishing 2016-06-01
Series:	International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks
Online Access:	https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/9383765

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spelling	doaj-c750b7aed0c941878785999eeb0af2642020-11-25T03:43:39ZengSAGE PublishingInternational Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks1550-14772016-06-011210.1155/2016/9383765On Harvesting Energy from Tree Trunks for Environmental MonitoringCleonilson P. Souza0Fabrício B. S. Carvalho1Filype A. N. Silva2Hening A. Andrade3Nathália de V. Silva4Orlando Baiocchi5Ivan Müller6 Department of Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), P.O. Box 5115, 58051-970 João Pessoa, PB, Brazil Department of Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), P.O. Box 5115, 58051-970 João Pessoa, PB, Brazil Department of Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), P.O. Box 5115, 58051-970 João Pessoa, PB, Brazil Department of Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), P.O. Box 5115, 58051-970 João Pessoa, PB, Brazil Department of Electrical Engineering, Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), P.O. Box 5115, 58051-970 João Pessoa, PB, Brazil Institute of Technology, University of Washington Tacoma (UWT), Tacoma, WA 98402, USA Computer Engineering, State University of Rio Grande do Sul (UERGS), 2300 Santa Maria Street, Bom Fim Velho, 92500-000 Guaíba, RS, BrazilThis work describes an experimental study on the possibilities of harvesting energy from tree trunks in order to power sensor nodes for environmental monitoring, particularly in wild forests. As the trunk of a living tree can be divided into isothermal subvolumes, which are generally referred to as annual rings, and the trunk is a good heat storage material, depending on the tree dimensions and its species, it can potentially offer different temperature gradients according to the tree trunk depths. The hypothesis is to consider the application of this temperature gradient on the faces of a Peltier cell to obtain electrical energy. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, a wireless sensor network was developed for measuring internal temperature of trunks from different trees. The experimental results show that it is possible to obtain a sufficient temperature gradient to harvest energy from tree trunks. Additionally, it is also shown that it is possible to harvest thermal energy during the day and during the night while photovoltaic cell only works under sunlight.https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/9383765
collection	DOAJ
language	English
format	Article
sources	DOAJ
author	Cleonilson P. Souza Fabrício B. S. Carvalho Filype A. N. Silva Hening A. Andrade Nathália de V. Silva Orlando Baiocchi Ivan Müller
spellingShingle	Cleonilson P. Souza Fabrício B. S. Carvalho Filype A. N. Silva Hening A. Andrade Nathália de V. Silva Orlando Baiocchi Ivan Müller On Harvesting Energy from Tree Trunks for Environmental Monitoring International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks
author_facet	Cleonilson P. Souza Fabrício B. S. Carvalho Filype A. N. Silva Hening A. Andrade Nathália de V. Silva Orlando Baiocchi Ivan Müller
author_sort	Cleonilson P. Souza
title	On Harvesting Energy from Tree Trunks for Environmental Monitoring
title_short	On Harvesting Energy from Tree Trunks for Environmental Monitoring
title_full	On Harvesting Energy from Tree Trunks for Environmental Monitoring
title_fullStr	On Harvesting Energy from Tree Trunks for Environmental Monitoring
title_full_unstemmed	On Harvesting Energy from Tree Trunks for Environmental Monitoring
title_sort	on harvesting energy from tree trunks for environmental monitoring
publisher	SAGE Publishing
series	International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks
issn	1550-1477
publishDate	2016-06-01
description	This work describes an experimental study on the possibilities of harvesting energy from tree trunks in order to power sensor nodes for environmental monitoring, particularly in wild forests. As the trunk of a living tree can be divided into isothermal subvolumes, which are generally referred to as annual rings, and the trunk is a good heat storage material, depending on the tree dimensions and its species, it can potentially offer different temperature gradients according to the tree trunk depths. The hypothesis is to consider the application of this temperature gradient on the faces of a Peltier cell to obtain electrical energy. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, a wireless sensor network was developed for measuring internal temperature of trunks from different trees. The experimental results show that it is possible to obtain a sufficient temperature gradient to harvest energy from tree trunks. Additionally, it is also shown that it is possible to harvest thermal energy during the day and during the night while photovoltaic cell only works under sunlight.
url	https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/9383765
work_keys_str_mv	AT cleonilsonpsouza onharvestingenergyfromtreetrunksforenvironmentalmonitoring AT fabriciobscarvalho onharvestingenergyfromtreetrunksforenvironmentalmonitoring AT filypeansilva onharvestingenergyfromtreetrunksforenvironmentalmonitoring AT heningaandrade onharvestingenergyfromtreetrunksforenvironmentalmonitoring AT nathaliadevsilva onharvestingenergyfromtreetrunksforenvironmentalmonitoring AT orlandobaiocchi onharvestingenergyfromtreetrunksforenvironmentalmonitoring AT ivanmuller onharvestingenergyfromtreetrunksforenvironmentalmonitoring
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On Harvesting Energy from Tree Trunks for Environmental Monitoring

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