High-performance flexible thermoelectric generator for self-powered wireless BLE sensing systems

This work reports a high-performance flexible thermoelectric generator (TEG) and its application for self-powered wireless Bluetooth (BLE) sensing systems. The proposed flexible TEG based on a polyimide substrate and an electrodeposited thermoelectric material is fabricated successfully. A high output voltage of 1.3 V is observed under a temperature difference ΔT of 52 °C. Its maximum output power and power density are 95.9 mW and 610.8 μW/cm2, respectively, under the same above ΔT. In addition, its remarkable flexible characteristic has been inspected, and its output performance is highly consistent under a repeatability evaluation. Our proposed flexible TEG shows much higher performance than that of other recently published works. Furthermore, two practical applications utilizing the fabricated flexible TEG have been successfully conducted. First, heat waste from an electric thermos pot is converted into electricity and used as an electrical power source for electronic devices. Second, a self-power wireless BLE sensing system driven by thermal heat waste is demonstrated. This work brings out a new opportunity in a futuristic flexible TEG to harvest thermal heat waste into useable electricity, especially in the fields of using wireless self-powered IoT sensing systems.