Direct Powering a Real Cardiac Pacemaker by Natural Energy of a Heartbeat

Abstract

Implantable medical devices are widely used for monitoring and treatment of severe diseases. In particular, an implantable cardiac pacemaker is the most effective therapeutic device for treating bradyrhythmia, however its surgical replacement is inevitable every 5–12 years due to the limited life of the built-in battery. Although several approaches of energy harvesting have been explored in this decade for powering cardiac pacemakers, the modern, commercial, and full-function pacemaker has never been powered effectively yet. Here, we report an integrated strategy for directly powering a modern and full-function cardiac pacemaker, which can pace the porcine heart in vivo by harvesting the natural energy of a heartbeat, without using any external energy storage element. The generator includes an elastic skeleton and two piezoelectric composites, which could generate a high-output current of 15 μA in vivo over state-of-the-art performance. This study makes an impressive step toward fabricating a self-powered cardiac pacemaker and resolving the power issue of implantable medical devices by piezoelectric harvesting technology.

Progress in wearable electronics/photonics—Moving toward the era of artificial intelligence and internet of things

“…Energy harvesting technologies have received rapid development in the past decade, including the widely adopted piezoelectric, electromagnetic, electrostatic, triboelectric, thermoelectric, pyroelectric, photovoltaic transducing mechanisms, and so on. In the field of flexible wearable electronics, thermoelectric, 213 piezoelectric, 214‐216 triboelectric, 217‐219 photovoltaic, 220 and their hybrid mechanisms 221 are commonly adopted due to the good compatibility. Briefly speaking, thermoelectric energy harvesters/generators are based on the Seebeck effect of thermoelectric materials to generate electricity under an existing temperature gradient, such as that between the human body and the ambient environment.…”

Development Trends and Perspectives of Future Sensors and MEMS/NEMS

“…Additionally, the enhanced current can efficiently stimulate rat muscle with a simple electrode, and the nerve stimulation with a small-size device was achieved as well. With the rapid development of recent self-powered technologies, wearable electronics are evolving towards self-sustainable systems to ultimately eliminate the requirement of external power supply [159,160]. extraction of interstitial fluids at a cathode.…”

Two-degree-of-freedom Piezoelectric MEMS Energy Harvester Based on Bulk PZT Film

“…(14) Because silicon is relatively brittle and not suitable for high-vibration-acceleration applications, in later research, we proposed a PMEH based on PZT and phosphor bronze bonding that could work at low frequencies and high acceleration. (15)(16)(17) The experimental results for the devices mentioned above show that a thinned bulk PZT film can have both good density and an appropriate thickness, and the fabricated PMEHs using thinned bulk PZT films exhibited a high output performance.…”

“…To obtain a sufficiently powerful PMEH, bulk PZT bonding and thinning techniques have been developed. (14)(15)(16)(17) In our previous work, we reported a PMEH with a 14-μm-thick bulk PZT film based on a silicon substrate, which was realized by low-temperature (175 °C) bonding and thinning techniques. (14) Because silicon is relatively brittle and not suitable for high-vibration-acceleration applications, in later research, we proposed a PMEH based on PZT and phosphor bronze bonding that could work at low frequencies and high acceleration.…”