New Flexible and Wearable Thermoelectric + Solar Energy Harvesting Technology

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I have been working on this flexible wearable hybrid energy harvester prototype for some time as a follow up to a previous version that used a new flexible thermoelectric material that allows one to convert body-heat to electricity in a wearable design, as shown here:    • Wearable Flexible Thermoelectric Energy Ha...  

Here I present to you a new technology showcase with a lot of potential over the next few years - wearable and flexible hybrid energy harvesters that can acquire multiple energy sources simultaneously and convert them into useful electrical energy for charging and lighting applications. The possibilities are large with this kind of electronics and I have no doubt that companies will begin to develop wearable appliances similar to this over the next few years especially as new generations of energy efficient smartphones, watches and even clothing integrated electronics become more widespread.

TegWay have developed flexible Peltier-effect thermoelectric heater/cooler (TEC) modules for use in augmented and immersive virtual reality applications - giving game controllers the ability to create feelings of cold or heat for immersive movie or gaming experiences for example. The same technology can also be used to create TEG modules for use in energy harvesting applications.

This kind of flexible energy harvester kind of a silver bullet for energy harvesting from body heat and also from waste heat from pipes and circular objects such as pipes which would have been difficult to attach a monolithic rigid TEG module and efficiently power devices from, such as IOT sensors and such, and to conserve energy loss in general from a system. In effect there is never such a thing as "free" energy, the waste heat being converted to electricity has its origins in either metabolic processes from a human being in wearable energy harvesting or as waste heat from a machine or power source.

It may be possible to see flexible thermoelectric generator modules stitched into clothing in the near future for powering smart devices such as phones and watches. More interesting applications still involve the development of thermoelectric energy generator (TEG) suits for expeditions in remote places to power electronics for geotagging or monitoring sensors. Perhaps such TEG Suits could be put to use out in the blustery conditions at sea, in mountains and the cold polar regions of the Earth or even developed into spacesuits for generating on-demand electricity for astronauts exploring Mars!. One can think of an suit that harvests Energy in cold environments being a huge advantage in places such as Antarctica or in the frigid conditions of the planet Mars where the temperature differences between the human body inside the suit and the subzero temperature outside the suit could be used to create a significant amount of power for explorers.

Combining the technology with an efficient flexible thin-film solar panel adds for more energy harvesting capacity and does not significantly affect the heat exchange mechanism as long as the solar cell used is of an extremely thin film. Positioned with the back of the element is Coated with Silver Thermal Paste and combined with Flexible Silicone allows for even more efficient Heat Exchange, creating a temperature differential across the TEG element and allowing the solar energy to be harvested while the element is in contact with a warm body or other heat source, for example electronic equipment that gets warm with use.

Another application could be in the geotagging of animals using a system that does not depend on batteries recharging from solar panels and instead uses the animals own body heat to power the device, again perhaps for maritime applications or in colder regions of the earth.

For the moment research is ongoing in developing applications and this still remains an interesting demonstration to observe the ability to transform one type of energy, thermal energy, into another, electrical energy.