Flexible Porous Piezoelectric Cantilever on a Pacemaker Lead for Compact Energy Harvesting

Abstract

ventricular dysrhythmias, and congestive heart failure. [1] Currently, lithium-based batteries provide the power for operations of implantable biomedical devices, such as cardiac pacemakers and AICD. Although the advances in microelectronics technology reduce the internal current drain concurrently allowing for a smaller volume and greater reliability of implantable biomedical devices, the batteries used in those devices only have a few years operating lifetime. Patients are still exposed to health risks associated with doing periodic surgeries to replace the depleted lithium-based batteries of the implantable biomedical devices. Therefore, energy consumption and battery replacement are key to the lifetime and effectiveness of implantable biomedical devices. This work represents an effort in tackling the challenges in extending the lifetime of the batteries for such biomedical devices as cardiac pacemakers and AICDs.Given the advances in low power consumption in implantable biomedical devices (such as 0.3 µW for cardiac activity sensing, [2] 10-100 µW for pacemakers, [3,4] 100-2000 µW for cochlear implant, [5] and 1-10 mW for neural recording [6] ), it is desirable to make them self-sustainable by having their own renewable power supply. One promising way to provide this alternative power source is by means of energy harvesting, i.e., to convert the source energy to electrical energy in order to power implantable biomedical devices. Emerging new approaches on energy harvesting for powering biomedical devices are discussed in the literature. [7][8][9][10][11] In recent development, in vivo studies have been conducted to further advance the energy harvesting capabilities of these devices in living systems. [12,13] For example, a piezoelectric energy harvesting device using single crystalline (1-x) Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3-x PbTiO 3 (PMN-PT) was implanted into the heart of a live rat and the device was then used to show functional electrical stimulation of the heart. [14] Heartbeats of pigs were also used to power wireless communication systems, [15] of which the integration with energy harvesting devices would allow for further implementation into implantable medical devices. Moreover, implantable triboelectric nanogenerators (iTENG) have been employed to convert the mechanical energy from the contraction from breathing of a rat to electricity, which was then used to power a pacemaker. [16] In another application, Self-sustainable energy generation represents a new frontier to greatly extend the lifetime and effectiveness of implantable biomedical devices, such as cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators. However, there is a lack of promising technologies which can efficiently convert the mechanical energy of the beating heart to electrical energy with minimal risk of interfering with the cardiovascular functions. Here a unique design is presented based on existing pacemaker leads tailored for compact energy harvesting. This new design incorporates flexible porous polyvinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene thin film withi...

Recent advances in flexible PVDF based piezoelectric polymer devices for energy harvesting applications

“…The maximum voltage of 1.5 V, current of 300 nA and power of 30 nW was obtained from 120 beats per minute with a blood pressure of 160/105 mmHg (Figure 27). They also, reported that the device can charge 1 mF capacitor to 1.0 V within 40 s. Furthermore, in 2019 Dong et al (2019) developed a unique design based on flexible porous P(VDF-TrFE) thin film within a dual-cantilever structure. This device is able to harvest energy from heart's motion by wrapping the device around the pacemaker lead with two free ends.…”

“…Gusarov et al (2016) fabricated a novel flexible thermal energy harvester using the coupled pyro/piezoelectric effect of PVDF with shape memory effect of NiTiCu alloy. The results showed that, the post-stamp size (27.5 mm 3 ) harvester can achieve an energy density of 0.41 mJ/cm 3 with a (Dong et al, 2019). temperature variation of 20°C (Figure 30).…”

“…Furthermore, in 2019 Dong et al (2019) developed a unique design based on flexible porous P(VDF-TrFE) thin film within a dual-cantilever structure. This device is able to harvest energy from heart’s motion by wrapping the device around the pacemaker lead with two free ends.…”

Piezoelectric Buckled Beam Array on a Pacemaker Lead for Energy Harvesting

“…Finite Element Method (FEM) : The cantilever based energy harvesting structure had been widely explored in the literature to target low‐frequency vibrations. However, the bucked beam configuration showed significant advantages in integration, especially for compact energy harvesting application (i.e., the device was designed to be placed in the RV).…”

Vibration‐Energy‐Harvesting System: Transduction Mechanisms, Frequency Tuning Techniques, and Biomechanical Applications

“…There is a lack of promising technologies that can efficiently covert the mechanical energy of the heart into electrical power without a thoracotomy and interfering with the cardiovascular functions. More recently, low profile, modular and compliant thin film energy harvesters were developed based on existing cardiac pacemaker leads, with minimal risk of interfering with the cardiovascular function [185,186]. The porous piezoelectric cantilever converted the kinetic energy of a pacemaker lead motion into an electrical power output [185], or a buckled beam array design was employed to utilize the bending of the lead of a cardiac pacemaker for generating electrical energy [187].…”