A Hybrid Piezoelectric and Reverse Electrowetting Energy Harvester for Wearable Biosensors

Abstract

: Wearable biosensors play a critical role for healthcare monitoring. However, reliance of biosensors on batteries has serious drawbacks. Although the human body energy can be converted into electricity with energy harvesters. Hybridization of multiple energy harvesters is a prominent trend to increase the power output. In this work a hybrid piezoelectric and reverse electrowetting (REWOD) energy harvester is proposed. The main principle of working is based on the presence of electrical double layer in REWOD component and the coupling with a piezoelectric nanogenerator via an electret. The proposed energy harvester design was tested numerically and in a series of experiments.