A hybrid ceramic-based flexible thermoelectric nanogenerator with enhanced thermopower for human energy harvesting

The growing demand for power sources to run portable devices has led to the development of wearable energy-harvesting technology. The integration of wearable thermoelectric generators (WTEGs) into fabrics that can incessantly convert body heat into electricity has been researched extensively. Yet, commercial fabric-based wearable thermoelectric generators have not become conscious. In this study, a fabric-based flexible wearable thermoelectric device was designed using Cobalt doped ZnO nanorods via hydrothermal method as the n-type and Bi2Te3 nanostructures via dip coating method as the p-type and strips of each were connected to form TE legs. The structural and morphological analyses confirmed the formation of Co: ZnO and Bi2Te3 on the fabrics. The electrical conductivity and average Seebeck coefficient of Co:ZnO coated cellulose fabric were 4.80 S cm−1 and 390.5 µV/K. The device was fabricated and showed a device output voltage oscillating from ∼0.3 mV to ∼0.7 mV with a different human body temperature varying from 308 K to 309.4 K. The experimental data showed the output generated from the flexible device to be more suitable for energy harvesting from the human body and can be used in Biomedical sensing applications.