Biodegradable battery developed for medical implants
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.027787
Nature : To power the biodegradable silicon chips they designed for medical implants, John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and colleagues have now created a fully biodegradable battery . The battery’s anode and cathode are composed of metals, such as magnesium and iron, that can slowly dissolve in the body and whose ions are biocompatible, and its electrolyte is a phosphate-buffered saline solution. Although currently the battery can last only a day, the researchers are working to improve its power-to-weight ratio. Besides their use in implantable medical devices, such as drug-delivery systems, the biodegradable chips and batteries could also find environmental applications, such as in chemical sensors that eventually dissolve into the environment.
