'Nanogenerator' Uses Heartbeats to Power Implant

According to a recent study, a minuscule electricity generator implanted in the body could tap heartbeats and use the power so generated to work as an early-warning system for medical conditions, such as hypoglycaemia.

A "nanogenerator" has been implanted in a live rat and has generated electricity from the animal's beating heart.

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And researchers led by Zhong Lin Wang at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta believe that it could run in-vivo sensors.

Wang knew that at the nanoscale carefully constructed wires of zinc oxide could act as piezoelectric materials - materials that convert mechanical energy into electricity.

Thus, he collaborated with colleagues to create a flexible generator that could harvest energy from natural actions such as breathing or heartbeats.

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The team deposited zinc-oxide nanowires on a flexible polymer substrate that allows the nanowires to bend in a variety of ways.

They sealed the device in a polymer to shield it from body fluids and to ensure that any electricity they measured was generated by the device, not background interference.

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This 2 millimetre by 5 millimetre rectangular device was then attached to a rat's diaphragm muscle using tissue adhesive.

"The device is so tiny, you can barely see it by eye," New Scientist quoted Wang as saying.

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With each breath, the rat's implant stretched and twisted, deforming the nanowires and generating up to 4 picoamps of current at a potential of 2 millivolts.

Then, the researchers implanted a similar device on a different rat's heart, generating around 30 picoamps at 3 millivolts.

While the amount of energy generated is small, researchers are hopeful that they can scale up its output enough to power simple implantable nanosensors - blood pressure or glucose sensors, for instance - that have modest power requirements and don't need a continuous supply.

Wang said that the device can capture motion in any direction, so it does not have to be fixed in a particular alignment.

"Any deformation can drive the device," he added.

The study has been published in the journal Advanced Materials.

Source-ANI
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