Energy harvesting from the electromagnetic

radiation emissions by the Compact Fluorescent

Lamps
Mohamed zied chaari, Mongi lahainai and Hamadi ghariani
National engineering school of Sfax, Laboratory of Electronics and Information Technology,
Sfax University, Sfax 3038, Tunisia;
E-mails: chaari_zied@yahoo.fr ; hamadi.ghariani@enis.rnu.tn ; mongi.lahiani@enis.rnu.tn
AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to present a

new technical to harvester the electromagnetic energy

form the dirty radiation generated by the compact
fluorescent lamps and storage in the super capacitor.
The proposed device is based on a magnetic coupling
and consists of a resonant antenna loop, Radio
Frequency to Direct Current rectifier and a super
capacitor. Experimental results are reported and
discussed. It is shown that up to 0.8W can be
generated from a 20 W compact fluorescent lamp,
thus demonstrating that the proposed harvester is an
optimum candidate for charging the super capacitor
and then device.

battery of emergency lights from the dirty electricity.

That can be found in a common domestic
environment. In particular, we propose to exploit a
near field magnetic coupling to harvest radiation
emissions of Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs). In
fact, experimental studies have demonstrated that
CFLs emit a relatively strong electromagnetic field in
the frequency range from 26 kHz to 28 kHz [8-14].

KeywordsHarvester

RF energy , rectenna,
electromagnetic pollution, compact fluorescent lamp,
super capacitor, dirty electricity.

I.

INTRODUCTION
Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) produce radio
wave energy. These frequencies radiate directly from
the bulbs and go on the electrical wiring in the home
causing poor power quality or dirty electricity. The
closer you sit to the bulb the greater your
electromagnetic exposure. Because the high
frequencies travel along the wire you can be exposed
in other rooms of your home as well as the room that
contains the CFL. Not all CFL bulbs produce the
same amount of dirty electricity. Some are worse
than others.
Our research on CFL will be concentrated how can
harvest the dirty electricity and protect domestic
environment from the high no safe impacts.
Electromagnetic
radiation
energy
harvesting
represents a promising solution for charging super
capacitor of emergency lamp at home or office [1-7].
The research in this area has focused how much
power energy can harvest from the dirty energy. A
rectenna consists of an antenna used to receive a free
propagating electromagnetic wave and a Radio
Frequency (RF)-to-Direct Current (DC) rectifier. In
this paper, we focus on the possibility to charging the

Fig. 1. Shows that the field strength within one inch of the bulb is
an incredible 100mW/cm2

More precisely, the device here presented consists of

a magnetic resonant loop , a rectifier , super cap and
DC/DC convertor. Results obtained by coupling the
proposed harvester with several CFL [15-21]
differing by power consumption are presented and
discussed .
II.

ARCHITECTURE OF THE PROPOSED HARVESTER

The loop antenna of air has been designed with a

dielectric cylinder with a wire on it, with: Loop
diameter = 37mm, 44 turns, and Wire section =
1mm2. In the Figure 2, the construction of the loop
antenna is depicted.

axis direction of the coil in our construction and

testing measurement, as shown in figure 5.

Fig. 2. Inductor loop size, with wire radius a, coil height h, and
spacing

It is interesting to note that the Voltage Vout increases

with the area and the number of turns (n) this can be
used to select an adequate voltage [22-25] . The wire
section has been chosen to reduce the resistance
losses of the wire. As the device is essentially an
inductor, in practice the resistance with this loop
antenna can be neglected compare with the reactance.
In order to observe the emissions of the RF radiations
of the CFL, the magnetic field produced by the CFL
has been measured as a function of the distance of the
CFL. There are two possibilities of H field
measurement: in the axis direction of the loop and the
radial direction of the Loop, as can be observed in
Figures 3 and 4.

Fig. 5. Pictures of the loop antenna it is coupled with a CFL

After the construction phase of the a magnetic

resonance loop coupled in the axis direction of the
CFL, we will study the electronics device can
converted the EM energy to DC current. The high
frequency signal from the loop antenna is rectified by
the schottky HSMS diode and flows through a lowpass DC filter to the super cap.
III.

EXPERIMENTAL AND RESULTS

Schematic of the proposed harvester are given in

Figure 6 it consists of a resonator, an RF-to-DC
bridge rectifier, a super capacitor and DC/DC
convector in shunt configuration with the battery of
emergency lamp.

Fig. 3. Magnetic Field Measurements in the axis direction of the

loop antenna

Fig. 6. The schematic of a harvest and charging circuit

Fig. 4. Magnetic Field Measurements in the radial direction of the

loop antenna

It is interesting to note that the energy harvested from

the CFL is higher when the loop antenna is the axis
direction of the lamp (near filed coupling). During
the test phase, we will use the magnetic field in the

The corresponding equivalent circuit is illustrated in

Fig.6; the resonator loop antenna coupled with EM
radiation emissions of a CFL is represented by an
power generator.
Taking into account measurements reported in
[26-27] which demonstrate that EM radiation
emissions of CFL have a peak at about 26.74 kHz,
the value of the lumped capacitor used to tune the
resonator was accorded to resonate at the frequency
of 27 kHz. In order to evaluate the power received
from the resonator when it is coupled with a CFL, an

LC matching network was optimized to match the

impedance of circuit. The quantity of the energy will
rectifier and multiplier by the schottky diodes stages.
A super capacitor (SC) charger has to deliver a large
amount of current at a wider range of voltages. The
energy stored on a capacitor can be calculated from
the equivalent expressions:
1
= 2
(1)
2
Super capacitor can provide the energy needed to
charge the battery for fixed time. This are
advantageous because they can be charged and
discharged significantly more times than traditional
lead-acid batteries, and can absorb energy more
rapidly without degrading their expected lifetime.
There are many system configurations using SC
banks as backup energy storage. To get started,
designers will need to target their energy storage
configuration and then decide at what voltage the
energy can be stored. Selecting the solution depends
on the power and voltage requirements of the load
and the energy and voltage capabilities of the SC.
Once the best solution is identified, tradeoffs between
overall performances and cost must be made. In the
figure 7, the prototype of the harvesting energy with
the super cap 2.7V/400F is depicted.

Fig. 8. Photograph of the output signal from the rectifier stage

The voltage power generated by the super capacitor

will converted using DC/DC convertor supplier from
2.7V to 5V than that will charging battery of
emergency blub at home using the dirty.
IV.

CONCLUSION
A new device for the collecting of electromagnetic
radiation from Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs)
and charging the super capacitor has been presented.
The projected device is based on the axis direction
coupling with a resonant loop antenna and a rectifier
to charging the super capacitor in very quickly time.
Measurements of the RF power harvested by CFL
lamp with different power consumptions are reported
and discussed. From testing phase, it is demonstrated
that a direct current power of 0.8 mW can be
generated by magnetic coupling.
REFERENCES

Super capacitor

Fig. 7. Fabrication board of harvesting circuit

In more detail, the spectrum of the signal received in

the case of coupling between the resonator and the 20
W lamp was used to optimize the LC matching so to
satisfy at 26.74 kHz the conjugate matching
condition between the electromagnetic harvester and
the rectifier. With reference to the use of the
proposed harvester to power high-impedance devices
for home monitoring applications, optimization were
performed with a load of 1 M.
Finally, measurements of the DC power generated by
coupling with a CFL bulb 20w illustrated in Fig. 8.

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