An Experimental Procedure for Measuring Thermal Parameters of Heat-Reservoir-Based Energy Harvesters

Energy harvesting is the process of capturing and converting ambient energy into electrical energy that can power low- power electronic devices. Energy harvesting from thermal sources is a widely researched form of energy harvesting due to its numerous application scenarios. This type of energy harvesting uses a Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) as a transducer to directly convert heat into electrical energy. However, TEGs have low conversion efficiency. To increase the thermal source potential, thermal absorbers can be used as an alternative. Qua-sicrystals (QCs) belong to a novel class of solid materials that have shown potential in enhancing the efficiency of thermal absorbers that work as heat reservoirs. To evaluate the diverse thermal properties of thermal reservoirs composed of different materials, this work proposes an experimental procedure. The results of the experiments demonstrate that the proposed procedure is effective in measuring properties such as thermal conductivity, thermal resistance, thermal capacity, and thermal diffusivity using a direct and low-cost approach. For instance, for copper and QC-coated copper, the measured thermal conductivity is 383 Wm-
¹
K-
¹
and 251 Wm-
¹
K-I, respectively.