Body powered circuits developed by Fraunhofer Institute

Our favorite German researchers over at the Fraunhofer Institute have developed "entire electronic systems" capable of operating battery-free from body heat alone. The picture above shows a wireless transmitter powered by the human hand. The 200 millivolts required to drive the device is supplied by a thermoelectric generator (TEG) which extracts electrical energy from hot and a cold temperature differentials of just a few degrees Celsius. Of course, the application processor alone in modern handhelds requires about 1W to operate so 2mW is a long way off from powering our portable electronics. Still, progress is progress.

[benharker @ Aug 17th 2007 9:12AM]

That's pretty awesome :)

[humpty @ Aug 17th 2007 9:20AM]

Didnt the robot overlords in the Matrix use the same technology?

[Brandon @ Aug 17th 2007 9:42AM]

ROTF!! you are right Humpty

[Grizz @ Aug 17th 2007 9:41AM]

Yes, but mainly they tapped directly into our nervous system to get the watts.

[KR @ Aug 17th 2007 9:21AM]

Imagine if you put this kind of tech into a car seat! The butts of a four-person family could power the car all the way across the country. I just hope that it doesn't need bare skin to operate... If it's just heat, it should be possible.

"Ok kids, we have a long drive ahead of us today, so we're having tacos for lunch!"

[sirius @ Aug 17th 2007 9:38AM]

I don't see how extracting body heat/energy from human is in any way good to a suckee*.

PPL eat every day to store energy so (s)he can waste it pointlessly.. and now they invent a method how to "collect" energy from ppl, so they could power their laptops, cells, cars, houses, cities??

"*suckee - person who gets sucked dry from energy."

[oshean @ Aug 17th 2007 10:05AM]

Soylent Green is people.

[Cory @ Aug 17th 2007 11:29AM]

You do realize that you thow of large amounts of heat constantly right? So thsi thing isn't "sucking" the heat out of you. It's just using what you're already losing.

[treetrunk @ Aug 17th 2007 4:26PM]

@Cory:

If you extract heat from something you cool it down. This applies even if the heat was "wasted" in the first place- ordinarily your body heat warms the air around you, if you then extract heat from this air then you'll cool it down and consequently cool you down as well. As such this will indeed "suck" heat out of you in addition to that which would otherwise go in to heating the air.

[sirius @ Aug 18th 2007 5:11AM]

That's exactly what I meant treetrunk. Besides the fact that you loose moore energy, you loose heat, no matter wether you're already loosing it or not, staying warm is vital to stay alive. (Maybe You even knew that already, but just in case)

[RGC @ Aug 19th 2007 5:37PM]

Its usefully because the energy generated is accessible in many more places than an AC outlet. I'm not sure what you are talking about with this 'suckee,' but if you are worried about getting turned into a battery then you are sadly mistaken. In conventional reaction energy is neither created nor destroyed so using a human as a main energy source is silly. It would be too much of hassle to collect 100% of the energy leaving the human body and if there was technology to do so one could the middle man and just burn what ever you were going to feed them directly.

[Michael Orr @ Aug 19th 2007 11:28PM]

So if this sucks enough heat from the air, could it be a cure for global warming?!?

[kaztm @ Aug 17th 2007 9:41AM]

Related research was published back in January, as I tipped Engadget back then.

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v6/n2/full/nmat1821.html

[whatevas @ Aug 17th 2007 9:43AM]

4 Comments and no mention of Matrix? Ya'll such lame geeks!

[johnnyg0 @ Aug 17th 2007 1:59PM]

"Aug 17th 2007 9:20AM - Didnt the robot overlords in the Matrix use the same technology?"

The second comment was exactly about it, don't you read them before commenting on them? no offence :)

[DM @ Aug 17th 2007 9:57AM]

Teh squidies pwn all!!!1

Neo = winnar

[3rdsun @ Aug 17th 2007 10:05AM]

The human battery. If I have a fever maybe I can power a whole city.

[ChrisDKK @ Aug 17th 2007 10:09AM]

Looks more like mein fuhrer institute to me.

[jaapv @ Aug 17th 2007 10:28AM]

Why? You are that old that you relate everything that sounds german to the second world war?

[Boaz @ Aug 17th 2007 12:46PM]

No, he probably said that because human experimenting is the kind of thing the Nazi's did during WWII.

Also, it's German.

[ds @ Aug 17th 2007 10:16AM]

Remember... Energy=heat. Heat=calories. Stored calories=fat. Sit on your butt and lose that butt!! The new fitness fad!

[me @ Aug 17th 2007 10:48AM]

"1W to operate so 2mW"

I think that should be "1W to operate so 2mV", not milliwatts. You never mentioned milliwatts.

[Thomas Ricker @ Aug 17th 2007 11:11AM]

@Me,

Look at the picture: 2.019mW.

thomas

[treetrunk @ Aug 17th 2007 11:04AM]

Cue a heck of a lot of people who just don't get thermodynamics.

[Warhorse @ Aug 17th 2007 12:38PM]

Would this work to charge a battery then? Would that even be effective?

[Josh @ Aug 17th 2007 11:29AM]

I am not a physicist, and my last physics class was 10 years ago in college, so cut me some slack. :)

But wouldn't equilibrium eventually be reached, so that the average temperature of the device and the hand would be too similar for power to be generated?

[fraggle_rocker @ Aug 17th 2007 12:08PM]

I think it would only ever reach equilibrium if your temperature and the air temperature became the same.

If your hand happens to heat the whole object up, it will still be working off the cold air, or warm air.

As far as i can see it works off the difference in temp of you and the air around you, not its own heat.

Saying that, i never did science, so i am probably wrong.

[Mike10010100 @ Aug 17th 2007 11:33AM]

This is just a simple application of the Seebeck effect. By using the different levels of heat on 2 different types of metals, (i think, correct me if i'm wrong, i'm not a pro) it causes the electrons to move, thus creating a tiny current. The greater the difference in heat, the more powerful the current. I had a kid in my class do that for a science project. The only problem is, that unless there's a huge difference in heat, say 100 degree C and 2 degree C, you won't get much power.

It's also been around for a pretty long time.

[idl3mind @ Aug 17th 2007 11:42AM]

HELLO MATRIX! Listen to me, Copper-top. We don't have time for twenty questions. Right now there's only one rule, our way or the highway.

[Dave @ Aug 17th 2007 5:34PM]

It will work better if you stick it up your butt.

[engadget @ Aug 17th 2007 6:34PM]

How much power does a watch need? Given that watches have direct contact with your body, it might be a good first application of this technology providing that there is enough power generated (and that you don't spend too much time outdoors in >37°C weather).

[Wwhat @ Aug 17th 2007 8:19PM]

This comes just in time for that plan of the US army to put a health monitoring chips/transmitters in soldiers head in a few years time, just enough time to shave off the rough edges.

[Philometalist @ Aug 18th 2007 7:43PM]

Slippery slope

[skum @ Jul 28th 2008 5:35AM]

Why not go further with this and puth in the athmosfeer and use the temp drifference between the universe and earthe (than we are done with global warming and so).
:D

[randem.pyro @ Apr 17th 2009 11:35PM]

Holy craaaaap! This just like in the matrix! Computers and machines will figure out that we humans can generate electricity for them and then begin to harvest us in farms. In a world where there is no sunlight!