A flexible, washable wearable device that -when screen-printed onto clothing such as a shirt - can harvest and store energy from the human body is being developed by a team of researchers from the University of California (UC) San Diego in the USA.The researchers describe the device, which comprises biofuel cells that can harvest energy from sweat, triboelectric generators and supercapacitors, as a "wearable micro-grid". A PhD student at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, Lu Yin, says: "Just like a city microgrid integrates a variety of local, renewable power sources [such as] wind and solar, a wearable microgrid integrates devices that harvest energy from different parts of the body, like sweat and movement, while containing energy storage."
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