(Source: ecnmag.com)
Pacemakers could one day draw power from a patient's heartbeat, eliminating the need for several battery replacement surgeries.
A team of researchers from the University of Michigan, headed by M. Amin Karami, PhD, has created a nonlinear harvester for pacemakers that is capable of storing energy from the vibrations of a beating heart.
The nonlinear harvester uses piezoelectricity, which is an electrical charge generated from motion. Vibrations from heartbeats were measured in the chest of patients, and then a "shaker" was used to replicate the vibrations in the laboratory. The shaker was connected to a prototype cardiac energy harvester in order to measure its performance. Performance was based on sets of 100 simulated heartbeats at many different rates.
According to the results, the new harvester generated more than 10 times the power that traditional pacemakers need.
The nonlinear harvester uses magnets to make it "less sensitive" to heart rate changes, making it capable of greater power production. In other words, if a heart beat is slower than another, the harvester can still generate enough power from it to keep running on its own, as opposed to a linear harvester that can be affected by heart rate changes.
The new harvester is also beneficial because it isn't affected by cell phones or microwaves.
"Many of the patients are children who live with pacemakers for many years," said Karami. "You can imagine how many operations they are spared if this new technology is implemented."
Pacemaker batteries must be changed every five to seven years.
Source: Science Daily
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