New battery can be implanted into the body -Lithium - Ion Battery Equipment
According to foreign media reports, scientists are currently studying the conversion of mechanical, thermal, and chemical energy in the human body into electrical energy through piezoelectric effects, thermal energy conversion, electrostatic effects, and chemical reactions, so as to provide wearable or implantable devices. powered by.
In ISing the Body Electric, poet Walt Whitman speaks fondly of the "action and power" of "beautiful, strange, breathing, laughing muscles." More than 150 years later, MIT materials scientist and engineer Canan Dagdeviren and her colleagues are using research to give new meaning to Whitman's poetry. They are working on a device that can generate electricity from the beating of people's hearts.(Lithium - Ion Battery Equipment)
Today's electronics are so powerful that the computing power of smartphones far exceeds the processing power of NASA's associated crew equipment when the first astronauts were sent to the moon in 1969. Over time, the rapid development of technology has led to higher and higher expectations for wearable or implantable devices.
The main drawback of most wearable and implantable devices is still battery life, whose limited battery capacity can limit the long-term use of the device. When the pacemaker's power runs out, all you need to do is replace the battery for the patient's surgery. The fundamental solution to this problem may lie within the human body, which is rich in chemical, thermal, and mechanical energy. This has led scientists to repeatedly study how the device harvests energy from the human body.
For example, the movement a person makes while breathing can generate 0.83 watts of energy; the human body has about 4.8 watts of heat in a calm state; and a person's arms can generate up to 60 watts of energy when exercising. A pacemaker needs only five millionths of a watt to run for seven years, a hearing aid needs only one thousandth of a watt to run for five days, and a watt of energy can power a smartphone to work for five Hour.
Now Dagviren and colleagues are investigating how to use the human body itself as a source of energy for the device. Researchers have already started testing the wearable or implantable device in animals and humans.
One of these energy harvesting strategies involves converting energy from vibration, pressure and other mechanical stresses into electrical energy. This method produces so-called piezoelectricity, which is commonly used in speakers and microphones.
A commonly used piezoelectric material is lead titanate zirconate, but its high lead content has raised concerns because lead is too toxic to humans. "But to break down the lead structurally, you need to heat it to more than 700 degrees Celsius," Dagvilen said. "You'll never get to that temperature in the human body."
To take advantage of the piezoelectric effect, Dagviren and her colleagues developed flat devices that can be attached to organs and muscles such as the heart, lungs and diaphragm. These devices are "mechanically invisible" because their mechanical properties are more similar to their environment, so they move without interfering with the normal functioning of these tissues.
So far, the devices have been tested on cows, sheep and pigs, because these animals have hearts about the same size as a human heart. "When these devices are mechanically distorted, they generate positive and negative charges, voltages and currents, so that energy can be harvested to charge the battery," Dagviren explained. "You can use them to run the heart biomedical devices such as pacemakers, rather than having to be surgically replaced every six or seven years after the battery is depleted.”
Scientists are also developing wearable piezoelectric energy harvesters that can be worn on the knee or elbow, or placed in shoes, pants or underwear. That way, a person can generate electricity for electronics when they walk or bend over.
It may seem counterintuitive when designing piezoelectric components that you don't need the best materials for generating electricity. For example, instead of choosing a material that can convert 5% of mechanical energy into electrical energy, scientists may use materials that have a conversion efficiency of 2 percent or less. If it translates more, "it may do so by putting more load on the body, but the user certainly doesn't want to get tired from that," Dagvilen said.
Another energy harvesting method is to use thermoelectric conversion materials to convert bulk heat into electrical energy. "Your heart beats more than 40 million times a year," Dagviren points out. All of this energy is dissipated as body heat—a potential resource that can be captured.
In ISing the Body Electric, poet Walt Whitman speaks fondly of the "action and power" of "beautiful, strange, breathing, laughing muscles." More than 150 years later, MIT materials scientist and engineer Canan Dagdeviren and her colleagues are using research to give new meaning to Whitman's poetry. They are working on a device that can generate electricity from the beating of people's hearts.(Lithium - Ion Battery Equipment)
Today's electronics are so powerful that the computing power of smartphones far exceeds the processing power of NASA's associated crew equipment when the first astronauts were sent to the moon in 1969. Over time, the rapid development of technology has led to higher and higher expectations for wearable or implantable devices.
The main drawback of most wearable and implantable devices is still battery life, whose limited battery capacity can limit the long-term use of the device. When the pacemaker's power runs out, all you need to do is replace the battery for the patient's surgery. The fundamental solution to this problem may lie within the human body, which is rich in chemical, thermal, and mechanical energy. This has led scientists to repeatedly study how the device harvests energy from the human body.
For example, the movement a person makes while breathing can generate 0.83 watts of energy; the human body has about 4.8 watts of heat in a calm state; and a person's arms can generate up to 60 watts of energy when exercising. A pacemaker needs only five millionths of a watt to run for seven years, a hearing aid needs only one thousandth of a watt to run for five days, and a watt of energy can power a smartphone to work for five Hour.
Now Dagviren and colleagues are investigating how to use the human body itself as a source of energy for the device. Researchers have already started testing the wearable or implantable device in animals and humans.
One of these energy harvesting strategies involves converting energy from vibration, pressure and other mechanical stresses into electrical energy. This method produces so-called piezoelectricity, which is commonly used in speakers and microphones.
A commonly used piezoelectric material is lead titanate zirconate, but its high lead content has raised concerns because lead is too toxic to humans. "But to break down the lead structurally, you need to heat it to more than 700 degrees Celsius," Dagvilen said. "You'll never get to that temperature in the human body."
To take advantage of the piezoelectric effect, Dagviren and her colleagues developed flat devices that can be attached to organs and muscles such as the heart, lungs and diaphragm. These devices are "mechanically invisible" because their mechanical properties are more similar to their environment, so they move without interfering with the normal functioning of these tissues.
So far, the devices have been tested on cows, sheep and pigs, because these animals have hearts about the same size as a human heart. "When these devices are mechanically distorted, they generate positive and negative charges, voltages and currents, so that energy can be harvested to charge the battery," Dagviren explained. "You can use them to run the heart biomedical devices such as pacemakers, rather than having to be surgically replaced every six or seven years after the battery is depleted.”
Scientists are also developing wearable piezoelectric energy harvesters that can be worn on the knee or elbow, or placed in shoes, pants or underwear. That way, a person can generate electricity for electronics when they walk or bend over.
It may seem counterintuitive when designing piezoelectric components that you don't need the best materials for generating electricity. For example, instead of choosing a material that can convert 5% of mechanical energy into electrical energy, scientists may use materials that have a conversion efficiency of 2 percent or less. If it translates more, "it may do so by putting more load on the body, but the user certainly doesn't want to get tired from that," Dagvilen said.
Another energy harvesting method is to use thermoelectric conversion materials to convert bulk heat into electrical energy. "Your heart beats more than 40 million times a year," Dagviren points out. All of this energy is dissipated as body heat—a potential resource that can be captured.
