ACI, in recent work, through innovative composite
design and progressively lower-power electronics, has
used such output to produce and store, in capacitors, a
net of surplus of energy (as of 9/10/03, 880 mJ has
been stored in 13.5 s, from a 25 Hz vibration). This
quantity of energy is sufficient to run many low-power
electronic devices, in this case, an LCD clock for 20 h.
Energy-harvesting devices are inexpensive, and the operation
is free. Additionally, the ceramic composites are
flexible and substantially lighter than conventional bulk
piezoelectric ceramics and show no degradation of output
for many millions of cycles; e.g., life cycle testing has
demonstrated no degradation of composite properties in
tests up to 200 million cycles.