New device harvests heart’s energy to power life-saving implants

Millions of people rely on pacemakers, defibrillators and other life-saving implantable devices powered by batteries that need to be replaced every five to 10 years. 

The same modules could potentially be used as sensors to enable data collection for real-time monitoring of patients, researchers said.

Novel pacemakers can be powered with light.

Smartphone-sized device to monitor your pacemaker at home

Soon, battery-free pacemakers powered by your heart

Scientists have developed a dime-sized device to capture and convert the kinetic energy of the heart into electricity to power a wide-range of life-saving implantable devices such as pacemakers. The heart’s motion is so powerful that it can recharge devices that save our lives, said researchers.

Millions of people rely on pacemakers, defibrillators and other live-saving implantable devices powered by batteries that need to be replaced every five to 10 years, they said. Those replacements require surgery which can be costly and create the possibility of complications and infections, according to the study published in the journal.

“We are trying to solve the ultimate problem for any implantable biomedical device,” said a researcher.

“Of equal importance is that the device not interfere with the body’s function,” said  a research associate. “We knew it had to be bio-compatible, lightweight, flexible, and low profile, so it not only fits into the current pacemaker structure but is also scalable for future multi-functionality,” he said.

The team proposes modifying pacemakers to harness the kinetic energy of the lead wire that is attached to the heart, converting it into electricity to continually charge the batteries. The added material is a type of thin polymer piezoelectric film called “PVDF” and, when designed with porous structures — either an array of small buckle beams or a flexible cantilever — it can convert even small mechanical motion to electricity.

“We have completed the first round of animal studies with great results which will be published soon,” he said. “There is already a lot of expressed interest from the major medical technology companies,” said  one of the study’s authors.

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