E-health patches that can power themselves and monitor user's health
The researchers at Osaka University along with JOANNEUM RESEARCH (Weiz, Austria) have developed an ultra-thin, self-powering e-health patch, which can use piezoelectric nanogenerators to produce electricity themselves from harvested biochemical energy.
SO, HOW DOES IT BENEFIT US?
Well, it enables us to monitor our health with sensors, and the thing is that the sensors needed power to work, so now with this technology can produce power with biochemical energy. This will boost the use of wearable technology a now there will be no need for wires and small batteries, but instead, they will power themselves with motion. The power consumed by these sensors is modest to what these patches can produce, this will be beneficial in medical or usual uses, to monitor blood pressure, pulse, and other health-related things.
BUT HOW DOES IT PRODUCE ELECTRICITY?
This patch is ultra-thin, about 1 micron which gives it ultra flexibility, and with the use of piezoelectric effects to produce electricity. Using a strong electric field, the ferroelectric crystal domains of the copolymer were aligned which under a large electric dipole movement, which due to piezoelectric effects was able to turn movements into small voltages, which can be stored in capacitors for temporary storage and use for the sensors.
Ferroelectric copolymer crystals are placed between two layers of metal electrodes, so when pressure is applied to the crystals, the electric charge inside the crystals go out of balance, and positive and negative charges appear on opposite sides of the crystal, the metal plates then collect the charges and produce a voltage which sends an electric current
The estimated production of multilayer patches can harvest is up to 200 millijoules per day, when worn on joints, elbows, or knees. Which is sufficient to monitor the parameters of the heart several times a day. And as the components on these patches are no thicker than 2.5 Microns and as the entire patch is made on a 1-micron thick substrate, providing flexibility and also let them be barely perceptible.
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