Human body heat energy harvesting using flexible thermoelectric generator for autonomous microsystems

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a thermoelectric generator (TEG) used for converting human body heat energy to electrical energy. The proposed TEG was composed of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate and thermocouples. The use of PDMS provides flexibility to the TEG and low thermal conductivity that helps minimize losses in the effective heat flowing through the thermocouples. The proposed TEG was fabricated by simple dispenser printing for thermoelectric materials. The fabricated TEG was attached to the human body and generated electrical power of 50 nW when the temperature difference between the human body and ambient air was 7 ◦C.