Development of Real-time Body Temperature Control Device Using Thermoelectric Elements

Due to the development of the science and technology, modern society has entered the aging society. Accordingly, the number of the elderly and chronic diseases is rapidly increasing. However, it is difficult for the elderly and chronic patients to respond to changes in ambient temperature due to deterioration of body function and autonomic nervous system function. As the results, it causes the diseases such as hypothermia heat stroke and sunstroke occur, and in the worst case, this causes death. Therefore, this study designed a heating and cooling system that can be applied to the elderly and chronic patients who have difficulty maintaining body temperature in daily life, and can also maintain body temperature in an emergency situation. It was designed and developed to circulate heating and cooling circulating water according to the changes in ascending and descending conditions by measuring the reference body temperature. The minimum cooling temperature of the developed body temperature maintenance device was 8.7 °C, and the maximum heating temperature was 70 °C or higher. In the maintenance experiment of maintaining the temperature used for the agarose gel electrophoresis, it took 4 min to maintain the derby temperature at 37.2 °C to 36.5 °C, and it took 2 min and 40 s to reach 36.5 °C at 35 °C.