Efficient thermoelectric generators were recently published as a possibly efficient way to sustain implanted medical devices

Let’s face it: we’re dealing with an aging population. There’s no way around this fact, and the obvious implication is that in the future we’re going to need better heart pacemakers and better systems for insulin injection. The future seems to be heading towards more sophisticated implantable machinery, be it pacemakers or sustainable drug-release devices inside the body. But the more sophisticated we want them to be, the faster their power supply – the battery – will run out. How do we deal with that?

One possible solution of many has been published recently in the Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems. The researchers developed a generator that can harvest energy from the body heat and convert it into electricity. While thermoelectric power generators came into existence long before this study, the new generator has increased energy efficiency. The device attaches to the body and can only generate a power output of 1.3 microwatts, but that might be enough to help the constant recharge of implanted medical devices, and prolong their battery lifetime.

In general, the study and development of novel implantable biomedical devices and the question of finding a suitable power source for them are some of the top challenges of nowadays biomedical engineering. In the soon to come ILSI-BioMed Week 2010, one of the very first seasons will include a lecture by Dr. Bryant D. Moore about ‘ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF FUTURE IMPLANTABLE SYSTEMS’. Dr. Moore is currently the vice president of research and technology in the New Therapies and Diagnostics Division of Medtronic’s Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management Business. It will be very interesting to hear his view on the future of implantable devices, and where they are heading.

Source: PhysOrg

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