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Body Powered Batteries -- Thermoelectrics

Posted by timothy on from the your-body-is-your-dynamo dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this story on Yahoo, the folks at Applied Digital Solutions have "developed a miniaturized thermoelectric generator -- a half-inch diameter ceramic-based `battery' that converts low gradient body heat flow into electrical power." Right now they can power watches or small medical devices. How long before these things can power my handheld?"

6 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. Self contained artificial organs, cobber! by TaleSpinner · · Score: 5, Interesting
    How long before these things can power my
    handheld?



    Screw that. How long before they can power an
    artificial heart!?



    A completely self-contained, reliable, artifical
    heart available off-the-shelf and requiring no
    external battery pack or management would be a
    sea change in modern medicine. Jean-Luc Picard
    lives! Wonder what brand he uses?

    1. Re:Self contained artificial organs, cobber! by ldopa1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A completely self-contained, reliable, artifical
      heart available off-the-shelf and requiring no
      external battery pack or management would be a
      sea change in modern medicine.

      I can just imagine the Tech Support Call for this one...

      "Press 1 if you're having trouble installing your BeatFree Artificial Heart. Press 2 if your Heart will not start..."

      Of course, that'll lead to all kinds of 911 calls...

      "Help! My husband's heart isn't beating!!!"
      "Ma'am, please calm down. If your would turn your husband over and look at the Service Tag on his left ass-cheek...."
      "Ok, Ok! Here it is... 615-CU-OEM-5YE"
      "Ma'am, I'm sorry but you'll have to call the vendor for support. You're husband has an OEM heart."

      Or even better...

      "Sir, your heart is working fine. You'll just need to replace the power supply!"
      "How would I do that?"
      "Well, take you wife into the bedroom...."

      Seriously, this type of thing has been mentioned in numerous sci-fi novels as an imminent invention. I would love to get a wristwatch display installed underneath the skin on my left wrist, with luminous hands which glow through the skin. It would be cool, it'd never run out, you'd only have to set it once, you could upload new hand-designs onto it, and you'd only see it when you needed it. If it broke, it's a small incision, but it never breaks because it's under the skin. Sign me up!

      --
      The Dopester
      "Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
  2. All options by Docrates · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As always my memory fails me, but I read in Wired Magazine, about a year ago, about this guy that stored the energy generated by your footsteps and then used it to power all sorts of devices. It turns out he was doing pretty well, but I don't know what came out of it.

    Now, if we were to identify a real demand for personal power generation, I'm sure there's a combination of strategies we could use, like those footsteps, body heat, chemicals, heck, even blinking!.. If you consider how many calories are burnt every day by our bodies in order to make it work, and how much energy is released in all sorts of ways, I'm sure we could power our cellphones and PDA's forever.

    --

    There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
  3. Powering medical devices... one problem by hillct · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And you thought falling into a frozen lake was a health hazard before... just wait until you have an artificial heart run by your body heat.

    Even after the EMTs pull you from the lake they couldn't restart your heart for at least half an hour until your body temperature increased. Bad news.

    Seriously, it doesn't mention what's the minimum temperature the device requires.

    --CTH

    --

    --Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
  4. another interesting application... by AsbestosRush · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hearing aids. Not quite as mission critical as a heart, but still good to use as a sort of field test, IMO.

    --
    EveryDNS. Use it. It works.
    AC's need not reply
  5. Re:larger power ones - power your server! by mcelrath · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Getting rid of waste heat is not trivial.

    Many of these types of reactors were developed by the russians, and even americans for space use. They all operate on the same principle as your air conditioner. They are glorified heat pumps. They need a "hot bath" and a "cold bath". Their efficency is proportional to the temperature difference between the two. The hot part is easy, and comes from the nuclear material. The cold bath is usually a radiator. Now, in space there's no material (like air or water) to pass over your radiator, so you have to depend entirely on blackbody radiation. (i.e. infrared photons carry energy away) If you remember your physics class the power radiated for this is P=sigma*T^4 where sigma=stefan-boltzmann constant and T is temperature. Anyway, this is the limiting factor. Making nuclear material hot is easy, and the upper limit is the melting point of your container. Making the cold bath cool is hard. It requires a large radiator (since power radiated is proportional to surface area!)

    I had some bookmarks on the subject but can't seem to find them now. One of the devices was manufactured by GE. The russians have several. A google search for "nuclear rocket" should turn up something.

    --Bob

    --
    1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.