Invention offers new option for monitoring heart health

A research team from Purdue University has developed self-powered wearable triboelectric nanogenerators with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based contact layers for monitoring cardiovascular health. PVA offers a valuable material in future wearable self-powered devices. The PVA-based triboelectric devices can function as self-powered sensors to detect and monitor mechanical activities from the human body in applications such as health monitoring, human-machine interface, teleoperated robotics, consumer electronics, and virtual and augmented technologies.