Thermoelectric energy harvesting for personalized healthcare.

Abstract

In recent decades, there has been increased research interest in miniaturizing and decentralizing diagnostic platforms to enable continuous personalized healthcare and free patients from long-term hospitalization. However, the lack of reliable and portable power supplies has limited the working time of the personalized healthcare platform. Compared with the current power supplies (e.g., batteries and supercapacitors) that require manual intervention, thermoelectric devices promise to continuously harvest waste heat from the human body to satisfy the energy consumption of personalized healthcare platforms. Herein, this review discusses thermoelectric energy harvesting for personalized healthcare. It begins with the fundamental concepts of different thermoelectric materials, including electron thermoelectric generators (TEGs), ionic thermogalvanic cells (TGCs), and ionic thermoelectric capacitors (TECs). Then, the wearable and implantable applications of thermoelectric devices are presented. Finally, future directions of next-generation thermoelectric devices for personalized healthcare are discussed. It is hoped that developing high-performance thermoelectric devices will change the landscape of personalized healthcare in the future.