Sometimes we find it difficult and inconvenient to replace batteries in those kinds of devices which need to work for long periods of time. For the purpose of monitoring and treatment systems of biomedical which have been implanted under the skin of the patients, it is difficult for the doctors to replace batteries as for this; they have to get beneath the patient’s skin which is a complex task for them.
Batteries in these types of devices which are widely used for the purpose of monitor machinery, infrastructure or any industrial installations may be compressed into nooks which are hard to reach or have distributed over broad area for which there are many difficulties regarding of access over them but a new technology has been developed by the team of researchers through which there will be no need of these kinds of replacements.
These devices will have the ability to be powered with the help of differences in temperature between the body and any other warm object as well as from surrounding air. This will lead elimination or reduction for the need of batteries by the use of new energy scavenging which has been developed by the researchers.
Through a simple device which will be worn by the patient on his arm or leg and powered by the body’s temperature, such system could enable 24 hour-a-day monitoring of heart rate, blood sugar as well as other biomedical data. A similarly powered system will have the ability to monitor the warm exhaust gases in the flues of a chemical plant along with the quality of air in the ducts of a heating and ventilation system.
This concept of harvesting energy from differences in temperatures is not new as many technologies have been developed earlier for the same purpose including many devices. A flow of electric current will be produced by a few definite semiconductors when one side is hotter than the other by their nature and on the other side, it will produce a difference in temperature when a current is running through them.
For the purpose of food and beverages, these kinds of materials have already been used for solid state coolers and heaters. These principles have been discovered very much earlier but in some recent years it has been seriously and detailed explored by the researchers as an energy source. In order to use this power, the devices still need some energy storage system in most of the cases so that the slow but constant trickle of energy could be accumulated as well as used in short bursts.
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