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KAIST Succeeds in Real-Time Carbon Dioxide Monitoring Without Batteries or External Power
< (From left) Master's Student Gyurim Jang, Professor Kyeongha Kwon >
KAIST (President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced on June 9th that a research team led by Professor Kyeongha Kwon from the School of Electrical Engineering, in a joint study with Professor Hanjun Ryu's team at Chung-Ang University, has developed a self-powered wireless carbon dioxide (CO2) monitoring system. This innovative system harvests fine vibrational energy from its surroundings to periodically measure CO2 concentrations.
This breakthrough addresses a critical need in environmental monitoring: accurately understanding "how much" CO2 is being emitted to combat climate change and global warming. While CO2 monitoring technology is key to this, existing systems largely rely on batteries or wired power system, imposing limitations on installation and maintenance. The KAIST team tackled this by creating a self-powered wireless system that operates without external power.
The core of this new system is an "Inertia-driven Triboelectric Nanogenerator (TENG)" that converts vibrations (with amplitudes ranging from 20-4000 ㎛ and frequencies from 0-300 Hz) generated by industrial equipment or pipelines into electricity. This enables periodic CO2 concentration measurements and wireless transmission without the need for batteries.
< Figure 1. Concept and configuration of self-powered wireless CO2 monitoring system using fine vibration harvesting (a) System block diagram (b) Photo of fabricated system prototype >
The research team successfully amplified fine vibrations and induced resonance by combining spring-attached 4-stack TENGs. They achieved stable power production of 0.5 mW under conditions of 13 Hz and 0.56 g acceleration. The generated power was then used to operate a CO2 sensor and a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) system-on-a-chip (SoC).
Professor Kyeongha Kwon emphasized, "For efficient environmental monitoring, a system that can operate continuously without power limitations is essential." She explained, "In this research, we implemented a self-powered system that can periodically measure and wirelessly transmit CO2 concentrations based on the energy generated from an inertia-driven TENG." She added, "This technology can serve as a foundational technology for future self-powered environmental monitoring platforms integrating various sensors."
< Figure 2. TENG energy harvesting-based wireless CO2 sensing system operation results (c) Experimental setup (d) Measured CO2 concentration results powered by TENG and conventional DC power source >
This research was published on June 1st in the internationally renowned academic journal `Nano Energy (IF 16.8)`. Gyurim Jang, a master's student at KAIST, and Daniel Manaye Tiruneh, a master's student at Chung-Ang University, are the co-first authors of the paper.*Paper Title: Highly compact inertia-driven triboelectric nanogenerator for self-powered wireless CO2 monitoring via fine-vibration harvesting*DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2025.110872
This research was supported by the Saudi Aramco-KAIST CO2 Management Center.
2025.06.09 View 1689 -
Professor Keon-Jae Lee Lectures at IEDM and ISSCC Forums
Professor Keon-Jae Lee of KAIST’s Materials Science and Engineering Department delivered a speech at the 2015 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held on December 7-9, 2015 in Washington, D.C.
He will also present a speech at the 2016 International Solid-State Circuits Conference scheduled on January 31-February 4, 2016 in San Francisco, California.
Both professional gatherings are considered the world’s most renowned forums in electronic devices and semiconductor technology. It is rare for a Korean researcher to be invited to speak at these global conferences.
Professor Lee was recognized for his research on flexible NAND chips. The Korea Times, an English language daily newspaper in Korea, reported on his participation in the forums and his recent work. An excerpt of the article follows below:
“KAIST Professor to Lecture at Renowned Tech Forums”
By Lee Min-hyung, The Korea Times, November 26, 2015
Recently he has focused on delivering technologies for producing flexible materials that can be applied to everyday life. The flexible NAND flash memory chips are expected to be widely used for developing flexible handsets. His latest research also includes flexible light-emitting diodes (LED) for implantable biomedical applications.
Lee is currently running a special laboratory focused on developing new flexible nano-materials. The research group is working to develop what it calls “self-powered flexible electronic systems” using nanomaterials and electronic technology.
Lee’s achievement with flexible NAND chips was published in the October edition of Nano Letters, the renowned U.S.-based scientific journal.
He said that flexible memory chips will be used to develop wearable computers that can be installed anywhere.
2015.11.26 View 12644 -
The First Demonstration of a Self-powered Cardiac Pacemaker
As the number of pacemakers implanted each year reaches into the millions worldwide, improving the lifespan of pacemaker batteries has been of great concern for developers and manufacturers. Currently, pacemaker batteries last seven years on average, requiring frequent replacements, which may pose patients to a potential risk involved in medical procedures.
A research team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), headed by Professor Keon Jae Lee of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at KAIST and Professor Boyoung Joung, M.D. of the Division of Cardiology at Severance Hospital of Yonsei University, has developed a self-powered artificial cardiac pacemaker that is operated semi-permanently by a flexible piezoelectric nanogenerator.
The artificial cardiac pacemaker is widely acknowledged as medical equipment that is integrated into the human body to regulate the heartbeats through electrical stimulation to contract the cardiac muscles of people who suffer from arrhythmia. However, repeated surgeries to replace pacemaker batteries have exposed elderly patients to health risks such as infections or severe bleeding during operations.
The team’s newly designed flexible piezoelectric nanogenerator directly stimulated a living rat’s heart using electrical energy converted from the small body movements of the rat. This technology could facilitate the use of self-powered flexible energy harvesters, not only prolonging the lifetime of cardiac pacemakers but also realizing real-time heart monitoring.
The research team fabricated high-performance flexible nanogenerators utilizing a bulk single-crystal PMN-PT thin film (iBULe Photonics). The harvested energy reached up to 8.2 V and 0.22 mA by bending and pushing motions, which were high enough values to directly stimulate the rat’s heart.
Professor Keon Jae Lee said:
“For clinical purposes, the current achievement will benefit the development of self-powered cardiac pacemakers as well as prevent heart attacks via the real-time diagnosis of heart arrhythmia. In addition, the flexible piezoelectric nanogenerator could also be utilized as an electrical source for various implantable medical devices.”
This research result was described in the April online issue of Advanced Materials (“Self-Powered Cardiac Pacemaker Enabled by Flexible Single Crystalline PMN-PT Piezoelectric Energy Harvester”: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201400562/abstract).
Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWYT2cU_Mog&feature=youtu.be
Picture Caption: A self-powered cardiac pacemaker is enabled by a flexible piezoelectric energy harvester.
2014.06.25 View 17615