Every year around 4.500 Danes are implanted with a pacemaker due to heart problems. The battery usually lasts 5-10 years, and when it needs to be changed, it requires an operation. But not for much longer. A research team from AAU Energy, together with cardiologists from Aalborg University Hospital, has developed a micro-generator that is powered by the electrical impulseshearts movement from the heart and generates enough energy to drive a pacemaker.

- Our solution converts the kinetic energy from the heart muscles into electrical energy that can drive a pacemaker, explains Associate Professor Alireza Rezaniakolaei from AAU Energy. Together with his colleagues he has developed the revolutionary new technology.

When the heart pumps the blood around inside the body, it produces a mechanical energy of about one Watt. The new microgenerator converts part of that energy into electricity. It creates enough current electrical power to keep a pacemaker going for the user's lifetime.

An end to dangerous battery changes

The pacemaker with the microgenerator has been successfully tested on a pigs, and the invention is now patented. This means that patients with a pacemaker will have an improved quality of life in the future.

The technology is not limited to pacemakers, explains Alireza Rezaniakolaei.

- With this way of harvesting energy from the body, we can develop implants that work without batteries. And if we can create more energy, it allows the implants to communicate with each other. This means that we can monitor the body much more efficiently with more data. This ultimately means better treatment for the patient, he says.

New opportunities for medical technology

The technique can be used for both implants and wearable technology that uses an external energy source. It could, for example, be electrical spinal cord stimulation for pain or Cochlear implants that can partially restore damaged hearing.