Encapsulation of mTEGs for on-body energy harvesting

The paper describes the development of a wearable thermoelectric energy harvester. To make it bendable, eight miniature TEGs were encapsulated into a PDMS matrix. A comparison between diverse configurations of heat sinks has been carried out to study the device voltage output performance, and the wearer's comfortability. Voltage measurements in a real scenario were made by wearing the device on the wrist. The measured open-circuit voltages are on the order of tens of millivolts, and the output signals vary according to the performed wrist movement.