Chinese scientists have developed saline-driven implantable flexible batteries

In the near future, people will never have to worry about leakage of battery electrolyte in the electronic devices implanted in the body. Chinese researchers recently developed a flexible battery, which turned out to be the normal saline used in hospitals. This work was led by Professor Wang Yonggang and others from Fudan University in China. The paper was published in the new issue of Chem Magazine, which is the latest chemical journal published by American Cell Press.

“In the future, wearable and implantable electronic devices are closer to human body surfaces and even implanted into the body. This places higher demands on the safety of the power supply they use,” Wang Yonggang explained to Xinhua News Agency reporters. Bending or deformation can cause leakage of battery electrolyte."

Wang Yonggang and other researchers developed a flexible sodium ion battery by searching for suitable electrodes. The selected electrolytes, in addition to physiological saline, and cell culture media containing amino acids, sugars, vitamins, and sodium ions, can all improve implantable electronic devices. The safety and biocompatibility. In addition, they also developed a flexible sodium ion battery with a safe, non-toxic sodium sulfate electrolyte.

These batteries have a total of two designs: one is a two-dimensional planar strap battery, and the other is a one-dimensional fibrous battery.

Wang Yonggang said that the advantage of flexible sodium ion battery is to eliminate the electrolyte leakage caused by repeated bending under the safety problem, but the disadvantage is that the current electrode material properties of this battery is not ideal, so the future needs to continue to find or develop performance Better electrode material.

It is worth mentioning that the fibrous electrode of the flexible sodium ion battery also has the function of eliminating oxygen and changing the pH, so it is expected to be used as an implantable device in the future to treat bacterial infections and even diseases such as cancer.