Harnessing power from beating hearts Researchers have created a device that can harness power from any constantly moving organ in the body to power heart rate monitors, pacemakers and neural stimulators Researchers from the US and China have developed a piezoelectric device that when implanted in the body onto any 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(PNAS), the team describes the nature of their device and how it might be used in the future. Heart rate monitors, pacemakers, cardioverter-defibrillators, and neural stimulators constitute broad classes of electronic implants that rely on battery power for operation, the team wrote on the PNAS Web site. The means for harvesting power directly from natural processes of the body represent attractive alternatives for these and future types of biomedical devices. Here we demonstrate a complete, flexible, and integrated system that is capable of harvesting and storing energy from the natural contractile and relaxation motions of the heart, lung, and diaphragm at levels that meet requirements for practical applications. Systematic experimental evaluations in large animal models and quantitatively accurate computational models reveal the fundamental modes of operation and establish routes for further improvements, the team wrote. 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 still in the research stage. In this new effort, the research team took the idea further by creating miniature power plants that are large enough to power real implantable devices, according to Phys.org.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 11:22:30 +0000
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