Micro Energy

Harvesting For
Biomedical
Applications
 Energy Harvesting

 Process of extracting energy from the ambient environment.

 Sources - wind, light, solar energy, vibration, human energy.
 Different energy harvesting methods
- piezoelectric energy harvesting
- thermoelectric energy harvesting
- electromagnetic energy harvesting
- electrostatic energy harvesting
- solar energy harvesting

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Energy Harvesting Using
Human Energy
 Reduction in size and shape of electronic equipment
energy consumption reduced to mV range.

 Numerous energies continuously available from

human beings as
► body heat(W)
►breathing (mW)
►locomotion like walking (10-100mW)
► hand cranking (W)
► lifting (10mW)

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Piezoelectric energy
harvesting
 Works on the principle of piezoelectric effect.

 Human activities strain piezoelectric material converting

mechanical energy to electrical energy.

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Piezoelectric transducers
 common types of piezoelectric materials
PVDF(polyvinylidene fluoride)
PZT(lead zirconate titanate)

Applications

 by inserting a piezoelectric film in shoe

 a force-driven piezoelectric generator for medical
applications

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o Piezoelectric Shoe Inserts
 three different ways to excite piezoelectric material
- compression, slapped and bent
 piezoelectric bender placed in the sole (2mW)
a unimorph attached to a curved steel plate (8mW)

o Force-driven piezoelectric generator

 fluctuating pressure in blood vessel as input

 piezoceramic wafer can power device in the
microwatt range.
Existing systems

 in pacemakers
- employ
nanogenerators to
convert mechanical
energy to electrical
energy.
- nanogenerators
consist of piezoelectric
and semiconducting
coupled
nanowires(zinc oxide).

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o Piezoelectric
generation for drug delivery

Schematic of a drug delivery system

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Thermoelectric energy
harvesting
 Works on the principle of Seebeck effect.
 Temperature difference of body converted
to electrical energy.
 Thermogenerators used for conversion.

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Application-Existing system
 in wireless EEG module
- employs thermo-
generators for energy
conversion.
- temperature gradient
between forehead and
the environment generate
energy in
thermogenerators to
supply the modules.

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Advantages
and Disadvantages
 Piezoelectric  Thermoelectric
Advantages Advantages
- produces voltage from 2 - contain no material that
to 10v. must be replenished.
- high energy density - heating and cooling are
- no separate external reversed.
sources required - no external source
required.

Disadvantages Disadvantages
- ageing problems - low efficiency.
- charge leakage -irreversible effects in
- high output impedance thermoelectric material
limits efficiency

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Conclusion

 Energy harvesting is an upcoming research

area.

 Available human energy can be utilized

effectively

 Energy harvesting eliminating problems of

battery replacement, disposal etc.

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Future enhancement

 much more advancement to harvest energy

from other biological parameters such as

 body temperature

 respiration etc..

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Reference
 Pacemaker charging using body energy by Dinesh
Bhatia, Sweeti Bairagi,Sanat Goel, Manoj Jangra.
 Thermoelectric micro converter for energy harvesting
systems -João Paulo Carmo, Member, IEEE, Luis Miguel
Gonçalves, and José Higino Correia, Member, IEEE
 Energy Harvesting for Self Powered Wearable Health
Monitoring System - Qadeer A Khan, Sarvesh J Bang
 Review and Future Trend of Energy Harvesting Methods
for Portable Medical Devices -J. Paulo and P.D. Gaspar
 Energy Harvesting for Self-Powered Nanosystems-
Zhong Lin Wang.
 HumanMachine and Thermoelectric Energy Scavenging
for Wearable Devices-Vladimir Leonov

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