Successfully fabricated safe medical battery with body

We all must have seen batteries in our expensive electronic devices corrode or deform.

Normally, small batteries use chemicals to operate, their structure must be reinforced with certainty. Furthermore, they must be thoroughly 'sealed' to ensure that the toxic chemicals do not leak out.

A research team in China has successfully developed a new battery that can overcome this drawback.

New slim batteries are flexible, suitable for all types of implants. The special thing is that they don't come with dangerous liquids, but instead are operated with sodium - a perfectly compatible biological liquid.

This improvement can change the way we use wearable devices and even medical implants.

Yonggang Wang, one of the researchers at Fudan University in China, said: "Current batteries such as lithium-ion batteries used in medical implants often have a rigid shape. Most still Flexible shape batteries are based on organic electrolytes that are susceptible to corrosion or cause fire.

The risks of safety and biocompatibility of current wearables are all very poor, let alone implantable devices into the human body. '

Successfully build safe battery with body.(Photo: Guo).

The researchers chose sodium, because they contain normal saline and are a cell culture medium containing amino acids, sugar and vitamins. This liquid is recreated to resemble fluids that are circulating around cells in the human body - so they are extremely safe.

With the use of liquids that do not harm these internal organs, the risk of electrical leakage is significantly reduced. The team made two types of batteries.

The first type uses thin film membranes of electrode materials, they have a mesh weight made of steel fibers, creating a 2D "flat" belt. The second type uses a nano carbon fiber as the backbone and is inserted into nano electrode materials.

Lithium-ion batteries currently used in electronic wearable devices are both in the form of charging and holding power - two factors that determine the battery's success. And through research, both newly invented batteries outperform older batteries in both of these features.

The researchers also found that the nano-electrode material has strange reactions when the battery works. During the experiment, they realized an interesting side effect. The backbone of nano carbon promotes the conversion of dissolved oxygen into hydroxide ions . Although this is a process that destroys battery efficiency, it is an effective cancer treatment.

Although this finding is extremely useful, researchers need to conduct more interdisciplinary studies to confirm whether this is an effective treatment for cancer. Currently, this is still just one of unproven theory.

"We can implant filamentous electrodes into the human body to consume oxygen, especially for areas that are difficult to access. The reduction of oxygen can wipe out cancer cells or bacteria," Wang said . cause disease, because they are very sensitive to pH changes in the living environment ".

Obviously, this new battery has very impressive features, but there must be more tests to be sure they will be effective in the long run, the researchers said.