State of the Art of Human Energy Acquisition Technologies for Electric Power Generation: A Review

The flexibility of recent electrical energy-based technologies (clean, efficient, and versatile) has had a significant impact on the progress of modern human civilization, as the world’s energy consumption grows at a rapid pace on a global scale. Researchers are working to harvest energy (chemical, thermal, and mechanical) from the human body and transform it into electric power that can be used to charge different electronic devices. As such, energy-harvesting devices are now being developed to generate electricity from the temperature and joint movement of humans. These technologies have the potential to effectively address three major concerns: obtaining electrical power, lowering CO2 emissions, and combating obesity. Hence, this study has provided a review and discussion of the thermal and mechanical human energy acquisition technologies (HEAT). The demonstration resulted in the finding that the energy harvested from such activities is sufficient to light up 100 commercial LEDs connected in series. Quantitatively, human body heat and mechanical motion can possibly produce up to 20 μW/cm2 and 540 kW/hr. (EGGMs), respectively. Accordingly, this particular method of generating electric energy from the human body is characterized by its lightweight and eco-friendly nature, as well as its simple structure and low production cost. Nevertheless, the energy generated from human body heat falls short due to the limited temperature difference between the body and the surrounding environment.