Take a look at this old Duracell marketing campagin...
Consider this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo9qRRC3ke8
Now consider this:
Pacemaker batteries, no matter who makes them, don't last forever. So when will the patient in the video above need to go back under the knife to get his battery replaced? 10 years from now? 15? A quick search on the web proves that the general consensus is that pacemaker batteries last anywhere from 5-10 years. Personally, I would prefer that the open heart / chest pacemaker surgery just be a "one-and-done" type deal.
An exciting new development in bio-implantable devices are creative applications for piezoelectric materials that actually recharge battery dependent implants. The key to this technology is that when piezoelectrics are subjected to mechanical stress, they become electrically polarized and generate electricity! Simple right? Not quite. Unfortunately, piezoelectric materials are characterized as being hard, inflexible, and toxic to humans. Understandably they would not be considered bio-compatible with the human body.
However, significant strides have been made towards realizing this technology through a research group at Princeton (in collaboration with a couple other places I'm sure). This group has developed novel nanosacle piezoelectrics on flexible, energy efficient, and bio-compatible platforms. Essentially what they did was take these toxic piezoelectrics materials, make them REALLY small (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter) and imbed them into FDA-approved implantable plastics.
This technology opens up great possibilities for all kinds of implantable devices. Imagine having a pacemaker right up in your heart whose battery is powered by the mechanical stretching of your lungs or maybe even hearing aids that are powered by eye movement. The possibilities are endless!
Reference Papers:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=charge-batteries-with-movement-for-10-09-24
http://www.princeton.edu/~mcm/McAlpine_files/13.pdf
Pacemaker Information / Battery Life:
http://www.arrhythmia.org/pacemaker.html
No comments:
Post a Comment