10 μW converter for energy harvesting from sedimentary microbial fuel cells

Sedimentary microbial fuel cells are promising harvesting systems generating powers as low as 10 μW, which is sufficient for powering underwater environmental sensors. This paper proposes a methodology and modeling to design a flyback converter in discontinuous conduction mode harvesting powers as low as 10
^th
of μWs to maximize the harvested energy and boost its voltage to a minimum value required by sensors. Using a model validated experimentally, we figure out the converter loss contributors and balance them to maximize the power efficiency. We achieved 28% and 75%, efficiency with an input power of 10 μW and 30 μW respectively.