IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v183y2019icp16-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human Body Micro-power plant

Author

Listed:
  • Smith, Eric
  • Hosseini, Seyed Ehsan

Abstract

This paper explores the heat generated by the human body and the capabilities of wearable thermoelectric generators in harvesting the thermal energy for practical uses. The wearable thermoelectric generator (WTEG) has shown great potential for use in this field, as such small-scale devices consume little power. While batteries are cheap and reliable sources of power, they have the unavoidable limitation of needing to be changed or charged periodically. WTEGs could significantly cut down the size of the batteries required for many devices and in some cases eliminate them altogether. WTEGs also have the distinct advantage of being solid state and maintenance-free. These factors have also made them lucrative options for implantable biomedical devices, which must have surgical procedures performed to replace batteries or conduct maintenance. From these possibilities, an enormous amount of research has surfaced in a short period of time. When analyzing thermoelectric generators, there are several limitations that have to be examined in order to understand maximum power outputs, maximum temperature differences, and thermal matching. This paper provides an in-depth explanation of heat recovery from the human body, including the thermoelectric capabilities of some thermoelectric materials, as well as the true “wearability” of a TEG for everyday use.

Suggested Citation

  • Smith, Eric & Hosseini, Seyed Ehsan, 2019. "Human Body Micro-power plant," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 16-24.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:183:y:2019:i:c:p:16-24
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.06.129
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544219312617
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2019.06.129?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kanishka Biswas & Jiaqing He & Ivan D. Blum & Chun-I Wu & Timothy P. Hogan & David N. Seidman & Vinayak P. Dravid & Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, 2012. "High-performance bulk thermoelectrics with all-scale hierarchical architectures," Nature, Nature, vol. 489(7416), pages 414-418, September.
    2. Lee, Gyusoup & Kim, Choong Sun & Kim, Seongho & Kim, Yong Jun & Choi, Hyeongdo & Cho, Byung Jin, 2019. "Flexible heatsink based on a phase-change material for a wearable thermoelectric generator," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 12-18.
    3. Ghomian, Taher & Mehraeen, Shahab, 2019. "Survey of energy scavenging for wearable and implantable devices," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 33-49.
    4. Siddique, Abu Raihan Mohammad & Rabari, Ronil & Mahmud, Shohel & Heyst, Bill Van, 2016. "Thermal energy harvesting from the human body using flexible thermoelectric generator (FTEG) fabricated by a dispenser printing technique," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(P1), pages 1081-1091.
    5. Rama Venkatasubramanian & Edward Siivola & Thomas Colpitts & Brooks O'Quinn, 2001. "Thin-film thermoelectric devices with high room-temperature figures of merit," Nature, Nature, vol. 413(6856), pages 597-602, October.
    6. Kong, Deyue & Zhu, Wei & Guo, Zhanpeng & Deng, Yuan, 2019. "High-performance flexible Bi2Te3 films based wearable thermoelectric generator for energy harvesting," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 292-299.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guo, Xinru & Zhang, Houcheng & Wang, Jiatang & Zhao, Jiapei & Wang, Fu & Miao, He & Yuan, Jinliang & Hou, Shujin, 2020. "A new hybrid system composed of high-temperature proton exchange fuel cell and two-stage thermoelectric generator with Thomson effect: Energy and exergy analyses," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lineykin, Simon & Maslah, Kareem & Kuperman, Alon, 2020. "Manufacturer-data-only-based modeling and optimized design of thermoelectric harvesters operating at low temperature gradients," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    2. Sijing Zhu & Zheng Fan & Baoquan Feng & Runze Shi & Zexin Jiang & Ying Peng & Jie Gao & Lei Miao & Kunihito Koumoto, 2022. "Review on Wearable Thermoelectric Generators: From Devices to Applications," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-27, May.
    3. Fan, Zeng & Zhang, Yaoyun & Pan, Lujun & Ouyang, Jianyong & Zhang, Qian, 2021. "Recent developments in flexible thermoelectrics: From materials to devices," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. Chen, Jiangfan & Fang, Zheng & Azam, Ali & Wu, Xiaoping & Zhang, Zutao & Lu, Linhai & Li, Dongyang, 2023. "An energy self-circulation system based on the wearable thermoelectric harvester for ART driver monitoring," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(PA).
    5. Song Lv & Zuoqin Qian & Dengyun Hu & Xiaoyuan Li & Wei He, 2020. "A Comprehensive Review of Strategies and Approaches for Enhancing the Performance of Thermoelectric Module," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-24, June.
    6. Eom, Yoomin & Wijethunge, Dimuthu & Park, Hwanjoo & Park, Sang Hyun & Kim, Woochul, 2017. "Flexible thermoelectric power generation system based on rigid inorganic bulk materials," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 649-656.
    7. Lv, Jin-Ran & Ma, Jin-Lei & Dai, Lu & Yin, Tao & He, Zhi-Zhu, 2022. "A high-performance wearable thermoelectric generator with comprehensive optimization of thermal resistance and voltage boosting conversion," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    8. Sharma, Vaishali & Kagdada, Hardik L. & Jha, Prafulla K. & Śpiewak, Piotr & Kurzydłowski, Krzysztof J., 2020. "Thermal transport properties of boron nitride based materials: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    9. Tian, Yu & Ren, Guang-Kun & Wei, Zhijie & Zheng, Zhe & Deng, Shunjie & Ma, Li & Li, Yuansen & Zhou, Zhifang & Chen, Xiaohong & Shi, Yan & Lin, Yuan-Hua, 2024. "Advances of thermoelectric power generation for room temperature: Applications, devices, materials and beyond," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    10. Nie, Xianhua & Xue, Juan & Zhao, Li & Deng, Shuai & Xiong, Hanping, 2024. "New insight of thermodynamic cycle in thermoelectric power generation analyses: Literature review and perspectives," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    11. Kevin Bethke & Virgil Andrei & Klaus Rademann, 2016. "Decreasing the Effective Thermal Conductivity in Glass Supported Thermoelectric Layers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-19, March.
    12. Lineykin, Simon & Sitbon, Moshe & Kuperman, Alon, 2021. "Design and optimization of low-temperature gradient thermoelectric harvester for wireless sensor network node on water pipelines," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    13. Liang, Jia & Huang, Muzhang & Zhang, Xuefei & Wan, Chunlei, 2022. "Structural design for wearable self-powered thermoelectric modules with efficient temperature difference utilization and high normalized maximum power density," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    14. Guo, Lukai & Wang, Hao, 2022. "Non-intrusive movable energy harvesting devices: Materials, designs, and their prospective uses on transportation infrastructures," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    15. Pascal Boulet & Marie-Christine Record, 2020. "Theoretical Investigations of the BaRh 2 Ge 4 X 6 (X = S, Se, Te) Compounds," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-21, December.
    16. Romo-De-La-Cruz, Cesar-Octavio & Chen, Yun & Liang, Liang & Paredes-Navia, Sergio A. & Wong-Ng, Winnie K. & Song, Xueyan, 2023. "Entering new era of thermoelectric oxide ceramics with high power factor through designing grain boundaries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    17. Terracciano, Anthony Carmine & Vasu, Subith S. & Orlovskaya, Nina, 2016. "Design and development of a porous heterogeneous combustor for efficient heat production by combustion of liquid and gaseous fuels," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 228-236.
    18. Cui, Tengfei & Xuan, Yimin & Yin, Ershuai & Li, Qiang & Li, Dianhong, 2017. "Experimental investigation on potential of a concentrated photovoltaic-thermoelectric system with phase change materials," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 94-102.
    19. Pan, Yuzhuo & Lin, Bihong & Chen, Jincan, 2007. "Performance analysis and parametric optimal design of an irreversible multi-couple thermoelectric refrigerator under various operating conditions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 84(9), pages 882-892, September.
    20. Zhi Li & Wenhao Li & Zhen Chen, 2017. "Performance Analysis of Thermoelectric Based Automotive Waste Heat Recovery System with Nanofluid Coolant," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-15, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:183:y:2019:i:c:p:16-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.