Dracula Technologies presents a game-changing PhotoVoltaic (PV) energy harvesting and storage solution with the introduction of its LAYER technology, which enables designers to eliminate batteries from ultra-low-power IoT products for lower manufacturing and maintenance costs.
Thanks to its inkjet fabrication method and flexible, 0.3-mm composition, Dracula’s LAYER technology is completely customisable to the needs of your design. By eliminating the need for a battery, it can also drastically reduce the form factor of end products without adding additional weight – LAYER is specified at 0.04 g/cm2 for the PV-cell alone.
The basic LAYER product is an Organic PV cell with a working temperature of -30°C to 60°C, suitable for indoor deployments lasting around 10 years. This operates bifacially for photon collection on either side of the cell from 5 to 15,000 lux, enabling energy harvesting even in shadowy conditions through scattered light harvesting, whether the source is natural or artificial. The design is encapsulated to ensure protection against water and oxygen.
The organic composition makes Dracula’s technology extremely recyclable with minimised environmental impact when disposing of the device. It contains no toxic materials, heavy or rare-earth metals, or halogenated solvents, with 99.5% of the device constructed from standard PET.
LAYER Vault adds a similarly sustainable supercapacitor to the back of the OPV cell to serve as a storage element in the event that ambient light conditions drop below the harvesting threshold. This helps to create a more complete energy harvesting solution that not only reduces sourcing requirements, but it also matches the storage technology to the source.
Thanks to the high energy harvesting efficiency, Dracula’s technology supports a tailor-made energy supply for products transmitting data over Bluetooth, NFC, Zigbee, Sigfox, LoRa, and other advanced protocols.
Key application areas include indoor smart home and smart building IoT devices, remote control units, asset tracking labels, electronics shelf labels, and anything else that uses AA, AAA, or coin cell batteries.
Dracula produces several ways to evaluate its technology, including a module that produces 3 V at 210 µA in 1000-lux conditions, as well as a kit produced in collaboration with energy harvesting PMIC masters e-peas (pictured). Fill out the form below for more information and to evaluate this technology for your next commercial project.
