2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Triboelectric nanogenerators were introduced in 2012 by Professor Zong Lin Wang. Since then, TENG has been tested in Smart Homes, clothing, and multiple aspects of daily life. Recently, TENGs have been incorporated into medical devices to develop a new generation of implantable pacemakers, ICDs, nerve stimulators and so on. TENG powered pacemakers have been of great interest due to their biomedical properties for greatly benefiting the life and health of both humans and animals. The battery life of these traditional implantables often only last a few years. They have to be surgically replaced after that via invasive procedures, which pose great risks to the patients and a significant cost to the healthcare system. Not only is this unsustainable due to the cost, it is also detrimental to the environment. This review article will give the history and downsides of current battery-powered pacemakers before explaining TENG powered pacemakers in detail and focusing on the recent progress of TENG powered pacemaker research and clinical studies. Various types of TENG powered pacemakers (respiration or inertia) and their clinical trials in animals like Inertia driven TENG(I-TENG) will be discussed. The instructions and models on how to build a TENG powered pacemaker are also included. Finally, this review summarizes some challenges that TENG-powered pacemakers must overcome to improve use and function such as more efficient energy conversion and utilization, as well as research perspectives.