The researchers at Shanghai jiao tong university find a way to power the cardiac pacemaker with the kinetic energy from the heart itself. The team will present the research paper ” Mechanism on buckled piezoelectric energy harvesting for battery-less heart worn pacemaker” at AIP publishing Horizon- energy storage and conversion virtual conference.
Traditional pacemakers run on a battery power supply to keep the hearts beating the way they should be. The latest research led by Yi and the team tried to figure out battery-less powering and leadless pacing.
“If the practical force of the heart is 0.5 newtons, the output power should be about 192 microwatts,” Yi said. “Therefore, for the commercial pacemaker, just about no less than 10 microwatts is sufficient for its normal work.”
The kinetic energy is harvested by creating buckled piezoelectric energy. The batteryless pacemaker is in the verification phase and the team is working out to resolve some shortcomings to the device, such as the long-term stability in vivo, the implanting method, and the integration between the rigid pacing chip and the flexible energy harvesting unit, before progressing to the next steps.
“The key difference is the method of the power supply,” Yi said. “Current paradigm mainly relies on the battery, which limits the development of many implantable biomedical devices. But a batteryless pacemaker is feasible through using implantable energy harvesting technology, which provides a sustainable power supply method.”
