Development of thermoelectric inks for the fabrication of printable thermoelectric generators used in mobile wearable health monitoring systems

Abstract

Power consumption appears to be the biggest technical issue and performance bottleneck in the development of mobile wearable health monitoring systems. One promising approach for addressing this challenge is to harvest the body heat energy using flexible thermoelectric generators, and printing is a low-cost technique for large-scale fabrication of flexible circuits and systems. This paper discusses the development of thermoelectric inks that can be used in the fabrication of thermoelectric generators, which can be used as sustainable power sources for mobile wearable health monitoring systems. The operation mechanism of thermoelectric generators for body heat harvesting is discussed, followed by the requirements on the properties of thermoelectric inks for the fabrication of printable thermoelectric generators. To achieve high thermoelectric figure of merit, we synthesized nano-structured thermoelectric materials with high Seebeck coefficient and low thermal conductivity, and developed surface functionalized carbon nanotubes that can be used as conducting agents for improving the electrical conductivity of thermoelectric inks.