“Many of the patients are children who live with pacemakers for many years. You can imagine how many operations they are spared if this new technology is implemented,” said lead researcher M. Amin Karami. Karami added present pacemakers are battery-powered and surgery is required every few years to replace the battery. But the new piezoelectric pacemaker can harvest energy from kinetic energy from vibrations in the chest as the heart pumps blood around the body.

"Piezoelectric devices generate very small amounts of power – on the order of tens of milliwatts – but it turns out that pacemakers require very power, too. In testing, the researchers’ energy harvester generated 10 times the required the power to keep a pacemaker firing," ExtremeTech said. Also, it noted the piezoelectric energy harvester is about half the size of a conventional battery. The team has tested the harvester’s ability to create enough electricity from as few as 20 beats per minute, or as many as 600.

Karami also said the harvesters have potential for other biomedical devices such as defibrillators. However, there may be much reliability testing ahead before the device is approved. ExtremeTech said Karami and his team are planning to integrate their energy harvester with commercial pacemakers for use by patients. (c&p)