A team of NC State researchers have claimed to develop a new way to harvest body heat and turn it into electricity to power medical wearables. Roughly a centimetre squared, the small device would firmly attach to a person’s bicep, and be able to generate energy up to 20 Microwatts, a lot compared to previous technologies. Not enough to power a smartwatch, but capable of powering smaller equipments such as medical sensors.
The patch creates electricity by using the difference in temperature between a individuals body an the surrounding air. The excess heat is first pushed through the wearable thermoelectric generator, which is just two millimetres thick.
