[Research] Prof. Sang-Woo Kim’s research team develops, inertia-driven in vivo energy harvesters
- 신소재공학부
- Hit1541
- 2022-01-26
Prof. Sang-Woo Kim’s research team develops,
inertia-driven in vivo energy harvesters
- Development of self-rechargeable cardiac pacemaker system based on body motion and gravity
- Energy generation of 40 μW, similar to the power consumption of a pacemaker per step.
- Expected to be used as a power source in various implantable medical devices in near future
[Figure 1] Prof. Sang-Woo Kim, Dr. Hanjun Ryu
Prof. Sang-Woo Kim (Corresponding author) and Dr. Hanjun Ryu (first author) developed an energy harvesting device similar to the size of a coin-type battery that converts mechanical energy generated by human body motion into electricity using the triboelectric nanogenerator in collaboration with Energy-Mining LTD.’s CEO Hyun-moon Park (co-first author) and Prof. Eue-Keun Choi (co-author) of Seoul National University Hospital. The development provides a breakthrough to solving the power source problem of implantable medical devices by suggesting self-rechargeable cardiac pacemaker systems inside the body using human body movement.
[Figure 2]
Body-implantable bioelectronics devices have faced major technological challenges as they require re-surgery to replace the implantable medical devices periodically due to limited battery life problems, posing financial burden and the health risks to patients. Specifically, owing to the worldwide increasing number of patients and reoperation cases for implantable cardiac pacemakers, research has been conducted to minimize the system's power consumption in order to extend the lifespan of the pacemakers.
Although the research for minimizing the power consumption of the implantable medical devices has been conducted, there are major challenges due to its difficulty in reducing the power consumed by the system that requires equipping of extra functions. In addition, with the ongoing miniaturization of the implantable medical devices, the battery life of the devices is facing a major challenge in its extension.
[Figure 3]
The joint research team found clues in the fact that objects in the box move seamlessly due to inertia by external movement. Although it is placed in sealed environment, the system demonstrated successful electricity generation through inertia and gravity driven by body movement that drags the PFA/Cu/PFA (freestanding unit) downward to make contact with the bottom PVA-NH2 triboelectric layer. Based on I-TENG, the research team confirmed that energy produced can charge the battery.
Fully encapsulated I-TENG was inserted at different part of a large animal and the research team confirmed various motion can generate electric energy through BLE-based wireless measurement system. Consequently, research team was able to reach the conclusion that the system can charge capacitors and batteries without harming human body.
[Figure 4]
Given the amount of energy generated by I-TENG, it is highly likely that the cardiac pacemaker 's life will be extended by more than 10%. Moreover, the output power may linearly increase by adding the number of integrated circuits. This experiment suggested a self-rechargeable cardiac pacemaker system and demonstrated its excellent operation.
Professor Kim said, "This study is a triboelectrification-based in vivo energy harvesting technology that suggests the possibility of self-rechargeable implantable medical devices that eliminated charging difficulty of existing wireless power transfer technology as there are no electromagnetic waves and irritating heat generated."
He added that "The findings realized the feasibility of in vivo recharge technology and I will work on improving power generation efficiency through follow-up study."
[Figure 5]
This work was supported by the Nano Material Technology Development Program (2020M3H4A1A03084600) and the Basic Science Research Program (2021R1A2C2010990) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
※ Paper: Self-rechargeable cardiac pacemaker system with triboelectric nanogenerators
※ S.-W.K., H.R., and H.-M.P. conceived the idea. H.R., H.-M.P., H.S.M., T.Y.K., H.-J.Y., S.S.K., J.K., and B.K. fabricated, measured, and simulated the devices. M.-K.K. and E.-K.C. per-formed the in vivo experiments. S.-W.K., T.H.H., and E.-K.C. commented on the research outcomes. H.R., H.-M.P., E.-K.C., and S.-W.K. analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. S.-W.K. supervised the overall conception and design of this project. All authors contributed to the discussion on the results and improved the manuscript.),
[Figure 6]