Battery Free Wearables Using Silver?

It seems that more and more creative ways to use silver are being explored. One determined poster in the Wall Street Silver forum actually came up with a list of 100 uses for silver. One interesting new potential use is described in a recent publication released by the Silver Institute. They ask if battery free wearables might be part of our future. Below is an excerpt from the publication explaining how silver factors in to the equation.

Are Battery-Free Wearables Possible? 

"What if wearables could be powered by electricity generated by the body’s own heat? 

Researchers at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) are studying whether an ordinary thermocouple -- two different pieces of metal that generate electricity when sandwiched together in the presence of heat -- could generate enough electrical energy to operate a wearable device like heart rate or blood pressure monitors without the need for batteries. 

Thermocouples are common in devices like fire alarms or hot water pipe sensors, because they generate an electrical signal at dangerously high temperatures but not at lower temperatures. 

That’s where silver comes in. 

Because of silver’s low electrical conductivity, ability to transfer heat with low loss, and flexibility, the researchers are experimenting with connecting a high-performance thermoelectric device to a stretchable base composed of silver nanowires. The researchers showed that the device could be printed and placed onto the skin where its flexibility allowed maximum contact to body heat. When touching human skin, 7 microwatts per square centimeter of electricity was generated from body temperature only. 

Seungjun Chung, one of the study’s authors, said: “Going forward, we will develop a flexible thermoelectric platform that can operate wearables with only body temperature… Our research findings are significant in that the functional composite material, thermoelectric device platform, and highyield automated process developed in this study will be able to contribute to the commercialization of battery-free wearables in the future.”

One thing that jumps out at you about silver when you look into it is how it has so many potential uses related to electricity. With almost every forecast for the future predicting increasing global electrification, it is likely that all kinds of creative new uses for silver will be forthcoming. 

This is why the industrial demand for silver is also likely to continue growing. Industrial users of silver usually buy at any price because often only a very small amount of silver is used in each product. So a higher price for silver does not greatly impact the cost of the individual final product. But billions of electronic products do add up to a lot of silver used in the process of making them.

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