Team builds implantable piezoelectric nanoribbon devices strong enough to power pacemaker

Researchers from several institutions in the U.S. and one from China have together developed a piezoelectric device that when implanted in the body onto a constantly moving organ is able to produce enough electricity to run a pacemaker or other implantable device. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes the nature of their device and how it might be used in the future.

Currently, when the battery inside a device such as a pacemaker runs out of power, patients must undergo surgery to have it replaced. Several devices that take advantage of the body’s natural parts have been devised to allow for the creation of electricity internally so that implantable devices can run for a lifetime, preventing the need for additional surgery. Most such devices have been too small to actually charge a real device, however, as they are very much still in the research stage. In this new effort, the research team takes the idea further by creating miniature power plants that are large enough to power real implantable devices.

*Also see http://www.pnas.org/content/111/5/1927

Learn more here http://phys.org/news/2014-01-team-implantable-piezoelectric-nanoribbon-devices.html