Battery less thermo electric energy harvesting generator for implantable medical electronic devices

Abstract

Pacemakers are used to treat slow heart rate diseases like bradycardia. The main problem about pacemakers are the lifetime and size of the batteries. As the capacity of the batteries is limited, replacing these batteries is difficult since it requires surgical procedures and also 60% of the volume of a pacemaker is taken up by its batteries. Eliminating these batteries effectively reduces the dimensions of the pacemaker. Thermoelectric Generators (TEG) can be used to power up the pacemakers without limiting the capacity with effective reduction in the dimension. The pellicani charge pump has been designed to pump the minimum voltage from the TEG to the voltage upto 1.2 V with minimum number of stages.