Posted by Mike on November 19th, 2007 in biology, power generation

This is a great example of out of the box thinking. It uses the excess energy of a beating heart to generate enough electricity to recharge the batteries in a pacemaker or batteries in an LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device) or other implanted body helper.

I must say that inventors have been tap dancing around this concept of scavenge energy for quite a while. The military has been looking for self powered sensors for years now. Imagine the excess energy of a ship in motion, swinging a pendulum recharger. You could almost light a ship with that much motion! So far, energy scavenging has only produced smaller amounts of power, and is used to run remote, low current sensors.

One thing the author mentions in the article is the potential of using differential heat. A true holy grail of energy conservation is the notion of a direct thermoelectric conversion, translating heat energy directly into electricity. The Peltier effect shows the opposite (converting electricity to cooling and heat), but no one has made a practical application for the reverse process, heat (or a change in temperature) to useable electric energy.

The case of this heart powered recharger may be just the tip of the iceberg of human-powered implants. For example, why not use the lungs? The movement of the lungs as attached to the diaphragm shows huge displacement. Perhaps as you breathe, you generate power as well. While I don’t personally like the idea of having all kinds of gadgets installed inside my body, maybe the benefits will someday make such oddities a very practical thing.

http://inventorspot.com/articles/heartpowered_pacemaker_8238

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