The heart’s motion is so powerful that it can recharge devices that save our lives, according to new research from Dartmouth College.
The heart’s motion is so powerful that it can recharge devices that save our lives, according to new research from Dartmouth College.
Using a dime-sized invention developed by engineers at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, the kinetic energy of the heart can be converted into electricity to power a wide-range of implantable devices, according to the study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Millions of people rely on pacemakers, defibrillators and other live-saving implantable devices powered by batteries that need to be replaced every five to 10 years. Those replacements require surgery which can be costly and create the possibility of complications and infections.
“We’re trying to solve the ultimate problem for any implantable biomedical device,” says Dartmouth engineering professor John X.J. Zhang, a lead researcher on the study his team completed alongside clinicians at the University of Texas in San Antonio. “How do you create an effective energy source so the device will do its job during the entire life span of the patient, without the need for surgery to replace the battery?”
Read more at Dartmouth College
Image: Dartmouth engineers develop dime-sized device to capture and convert the kinetic energy of the heart into electricity to power a wide-range of implantable devices. (Credit: Patricio R. Sarzosa, Thayer School of Engineering)
