Flexible thermoelectric generator for human body heat energy harvesting

Analysis of thermoelectric properties of amorphous InGaZnO thin film by controlling carrier concentration

“…The application of thermoelectric conversion from unused waste heat issuing from sources such as human bodies and wildlife has recently been studied. 4,5 It is necessary to investigate flexible thermoelectric devices and environmentally friendly thermoelectric materials to incorporate such innovations practically into our daily lives. Conventional compounds based on Bi or Pb have been considered to be the material with the most excellent thermoelectric characteristics.…”

A Contemporary Survey on Energy Harvesting Techniques for Next Generation Implantable Bio-Medical Devices

“…It is also theoretically demonstrated that using thin film super-lattice thermoelectrics, enough power can be obtained even when the temperature difference is only 0.8•C. In [28], flexible TEG is fabricated and attached on the human body to demonstrate that about 1 μW can be obtained when the temperature difference between the skin and the ambience is 10ºC. TEG is based on the See beck effect.…”

Design of Substrate Stretchability Using Origami-Like Folding Deformation for Flexible Thermoelectric Generator

“…However, a flexible TE generator is required as there is frequently a need to attach generators to a heat source with a non-flat surface, such as piping or the human body. Recently, TE generators with bendability [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12] and/or stretchability [13] were developed by using a deformable TE element (e.g., a carbon nanotube (CNT)-polystyrene (PS) composite) or a rubber-based stretchable substrate (e.g., polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)). However, deformable TE conversion materials based on polymer composites unfortunately have inferior TE conversion efficiency compared to the rigid BiTe-based TE conversion materials, while the stretchable substrates using rubber have a narrow usable temperature range of 213–423 K [14].…”