Charging Devices with Body Heat: A Feasibility Evaluation

This report explores the feasibility of charging devices using body heat and discusses the potential benefits and market problems associated with this technology.

Running head: THINKING BIG
THINKING BIG
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

1THINKING BIG
Executive summary
This particular report, aims in planning as well as designing a particular prototype which
can charge the mobile devices by the method of converting wasted heat energy into electricity
that can be used for various purposes. A concept of electrical energy storage thermally
chargeable solid state super capacitor. The voltage could be used in order to initiate a specific
amount of electrochemical reaction in electrodes for the purpose of charging. Wearable devices
could be powered with the use of body heat, there is no need of external power supply or there is
no need to battery replacement

2THINKING BIG
Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
The market problem.............................................................................................................3
Benefits generated to the idea..............................................................................................4
Feasibility evaluation...........................................................................................................5
The business canvas model..................................................................................................7
Critical success factors........................................................................................................7
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................8
References..........................................................................................................................10

3THINKING BIG
Introduction
The business idea that has been selected for this particular assignment is a technology
that would help customers to charge gadgets with the usage of human Body’s heat. Wearable
devices could be powered with the use of body heat, there is no need of external power supply or
there is no need to battery replacement (Liu, Vega & Maes, 2016). A concept of electrical energy
storage thermally chargeable solid state super capacitor. The voltage could be used in order to
initiate a specific amount of electrochemical reaction in electrodes for the purpose of charging
(Wissinger, 2017). A particular battery could convert the body of a human being into electricity,
this could result in mobile phones getting charged by themselves while they are kept in the
pocket. A button sized self-charging battery could be introduced, that could scavenge energy
from various sources of low heat, the device would be capable of charging itself at a specific
temperature between 20 degree Celsius and 60 degree Celsius, which is far lower than many
more heat harvesting technologies.
The market problem
The market problems that can be mitigated with the introduction of this
technology are as follows
Natural calamities: most of the times, natural calamities such as earthquake, landslide,
storm and many more, the electricity might shut down completely, in these cases communication
with near ones and charging devices for further use is not possible, people do not have any
option to charge their smart phones or any other devices, this technology would be helpful for
people during natural calamities (Kiruthiga, Sharmila & Mahalakshmi, 2017).

4THINKING BIG
Outdoor activities: many people tend to engage into extreme outdoor activities like island
hoping, mountain climbing, and many more outdoor activities, this is believed to be a particular
method to relieve stress and hence experience new adventure, people enjoy to share these
experiences to their social world, but they would have no option to connect to people if their
devices do not have charged (Khan, 2017). They do not have any option to keep in touch with
the outside world. People cannot completely depend on their power banks that they would have
carried, because even these devices would be out of power after a while, hence the introduction
of the proposed technology is a vital part (Lee, Kim & Ryoo, 2016). Besides this, the people who
love to go for long journeys do not have any option to cook food for survival; this technology
would be able to provide the users with an option of cooking their own food using electrical
devices in the places where food is not readily available (Lee, Xu & Lee, 2016). Places like
mountains and forests would not be able to look for places that could be used for charging.
Benefits generated to the idea
There are various benefits that are generated to the idea of introducing this
technology are as follows
Self powered devices: self powered devices usually depict to never charging the devices
like mobile phones, laptops and many more gadgets. The main benefit provided to people
belongs to the health of customers, this device would be able charge various implantable medical
devices such as pacemakers, in case these devices rely on the batteries, in order to replace these
batteries, surgery needs to be done, as a result providing operations for various medical devices
is a great advantage and might affect the lives of people (Awolusi, Marks & Hallowell, 2018).

5THINKING BIG
These devices would also be helpful in implanting brains as well. Most of the brain implants
usually last less than five years and long lasting implant requires having a long-lasting batteries.
Harvesting the power from body heat: there are numerous ways by which self-powered
devices could work. One is considered as piezoelectric energy that is generated when a particular
user applies pressure to various materials (Ghamari, Janko & Sherratt, 2016). One more method
that is common in public imagination, is harvesting the moment. When movement seems to be
obvious, it is usually not practical to have various devices which work when a user is in motion
(Dong, Deng & Zi, 2017). Hence the best source of energy can be considered as body heat or the
thermoelectric generation.
Image 1: architecture
(Source: Mary, Durai & Mistry, 2019)
Feasibility evaluation
Addiction of electricity has generated a concurrent as well as dependence ti the fossil
fuels, the reserves of the fossil fuels would be depleted because the oil is considered as a limited

6THINKING BIG
resource (Kao, Mohan & Schmand, 2016). Over various years, the cost of electricity had risen to
the unprecedented levels because there is a limited resource. As a result of this, the renewable
energy is an attractive alternative to the generation of electricity because it would also provide a
clean environment for the future generations (Ramanathan, Keerthan & Uttej, 2018). There have
been many solutions to the renewable energy, but in some cases they are unfeasible. This is
particular project, a particular device has been proposed as a business idea for humans to create a
renewable energy using the thermoelectric devices. Thermoelectric generators are usually solid
state devices which convert heat into the electricity (Mary, Durai & Mistry, 2019). Unlike the
traditional dynamic heat engines, various thermoelectric generators do not have any moving
parts and are usually silent. These generators are proposed to be used in developing the
technology (Vega, Cunha & Fuks, 2015). They are used also because they provide 30 years of
maintenance free operation in deep space probes. The basic technology that is behind this
particular concept of turning body heat to electricity is a thermoelectric device (Khan, 2017). It is
actually a conductive material that is thin, it exploits the difference in temperature into two sides
for generating electricity, and this is known as Seebeck effect. These devices are able to work in
reverse as well, this means that if the user was to apply electricity to a device, one of the sides
would get very cold and another side would get very hot (Wissinger, 2017). If the user owns a
USB power drink chillier, he must be having a thermoelectric generator which works in reverse.
This idea is also used in cooling the computers. The thermoelectric device that is placed on skin
would generate power as long as the ambient air is in low temperature than the body.

7THINKING BIG
The business canvas model
Image 2: business canvas model
(Source: crated by author)
Description of the proposed business process model
The key partners of this particular proposed business model include DH Utility, drilling
company, financial institutions, and public authorities. They key activities that are performed by
the components include establishing connection with the stakeholders and pre production

8THINKING BIG
planning and design. The value that would be proposed by the proposed business canvas model
is long term stable, secured heat supply. There are some more divisions like key resources, value
propositions, customer relationship, channels, customer segments, and cost structure and revenue
streams.
Interrelationship of building blocks of BMC
BMC consists of 9 building blocks which include customer segments, this block deals
with offering value to the target audience. Some more building blocks include value proposition,
this is built for explaining the way customer segments would value from the unique offer and
differentiate from competition. Channels describe the channels that would value propose for
delivery. Customer relationship plan for keeping solid relationships with the customer segments,
revenue streams would detect how the value propositions bring about the revenues from every
target audience. The key activities detect the operations that are important to success of the
business. The key partnerships are obtained with the help of networking with people who can
help with the business success. The cost structure deals with the costs associated with the
business.
Critical success factors
The overall idea of converting the energy of human body into a certain amount of
electricity has been tantalized people for years. A particular resting male could put out between
100 and 130 watts of power, this is enough for powering numerous electronics that are used by
the users such as laptops and mobile phones (Liu, Vega & Maes, 2016). Eighty percent of the
body power has been provided off as excess amount of heat. The critical success factor of
introducing this technology includes low-powered electronics, one of the biggest problems is the

9THINKING BIG
leakage in batteries, in case a battery is kept on a shelf, and it’s not in use, it would lose energy
that is stored in its own, for this particular purpose the device has been proposed as business idea
(Wissinger, 2017). The body heat powered devices usually consists of a huge orange wristband
along with a patch on the chest. The wristband could monitor the indicators such as temperature,
humidity and various organic compounds in the air. This patch also contributes in tracking heart
rate, respiratory rate and movement. The usage of this particular technology would also help
people who like to travel to places and carry out physical activities (Khan, 2017). Flexibility is
also a key innovation in this particular area. People are allowed with flexibility in the material,
the people can simulate the human skin for machine interfaces. Stretchy wearable can be utilized
in the body sensors, including anything involved fabric.
Conclusion
From the report above, it can be concluded that the technology that could be used for the
purpose of charging devices with the use of body heat would be helpful for people in numerous
ways. This particular report, aims in planning as well as designing a particular prototype which
can charge the mobile devices by the method of converting wasted heat energy into electricity
that can be used for various purposes. It proposes a business idea for the purpose of developing a
low cost portable, convertible and compact thermoelectric device; this would be planned by
converting heat energy into various usable electric power. This report also develops the
capability of TEG module with the help of making a circuit which can amplify the overall output
voltage for producing enough amount of electricity for charging mobile devices. It further aims
in controlling and regulating the overall output voltage for avoiding damage in charging the
mobile devices. The man idea behind this business idea is to reuse the wasted heat that is

10THINKING BIG
produced from humans’ daily activity such as cooking activities, physical activities into clean as
well as clear electricity for a particular broad range of products such as charger, fan, lamp shade
and many more. Some studies have validated that affordable and clean energy services are very
important for good physical well-being, reduction in dependence of electricity as well as
productivity of household members.

11THINKING BIG
References
Awolusi, I., Marks, E., & Hallowell, M. (2018). Wearable technology for personalized
construction safety monitoring and trending: Review of applicable devices. Automation in
construction, 85, 96-106.
Dong, K., Deng, J., Zi, Y., Wang, Y. C., Xu, C., Zou, H., ... & Wang, Z. L. (2017). 3D
Orthogonal Woven Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Effective Biomechanical Energy
Harvesting and as Self‐Powered Active Motion Sensors. Advanced Materials, 29(38),
1702648.
Ghamari, M., Janko, B., Sherratt, R., Harwin, W., Piechockic, R., & Soltanpur, C. (2016). A
survey on wireless body area networks for ehealthcare systems in residential
environments. Sensors, 16(6), 831.
Kao, H. L. C., Mohan, M., Schmandt, C., Paradiso, J. A., & Vega, K. (2016, May). Chromoskin:
Towards interactive cosmetics using thermochromic pigments. In Proceedings of the
2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp.
3703-3706). ACM.
Khan, S. F. (2017, March). Health care monitoring system in Internet of Things (IoT) by using
RFID. In 2017 6th International Conference on Industrial Technology and Management
(ICITM) (pp. 198-204). IEEE.
Kiruthiga, G., Sharmila, A., Mahalakshmi, P., & Muruganandam, M. (2017). Power optimisation
for wearable heart rate measurement device with wireless charging. Journal of medical
engineering & technology, 41(4), 288-297.

12THINKING BIG
Lee, J. W., Xu, R., Lee, S., Jang, K. I., Yang, Y., Banks, A., ... & Jang, S. W. (2016). Soft, thin
skin-mounted power management systems and their use in wireless
thermography. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(22), 6131-6136.
Lee, J., Kim, D., Ryoo, H. Y., & Shin, B. S. (2016). Sustainable wearables: Wearable technology
for enhancing the quality of human life. Sustainability, 8(5), 466.
Liu, X., Vega, K., Maes, P., & Paradiso, J. A. (2016, February). Wearability factors for skin
interfaces. In Proceedings of the 7th Augmented Human International Conference
2016 (p. 21). ACM.
Mary, T. A. J., Durai, S., & Mistry, S. (2019). Patch antenna using Biocompatible Insulation
layer in Wireless On-Body sensor applications. Journal of Engineering Science and
Technology Review, 12(1), 99-103.
Ramanathan, L., Keerthan, V. B. S., Uttej, K. S., & Vamsi, K. K. (2018). Human Body
Kinematics Detection System using Heart Rate Monitoring. International Journal of Pure
and Applied Mathematics, 118(20), 9-14.
Vega, K., Cunha, M., & Fuks, H. (2015, March). Hairware: the conscious use of unconscious
auto-contact behaviors. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on
Intelligent User Interfaces (pp. 78-86). ACM.
Wissinger, E. (2017). Wearable tech, bodies, and gender. Sociology Compass, 11(11), e12514.