Bioengineers are getting better at replacing and enhancing body parts, but so far they’ve struggled to power implantable bionics without resorting to clunky batteries. But because blood carries energy in the form of electron-rich molecules like glucose and delivers it to all parts of the body, it is a tempting target for researchers. Chemist Evgeny Katz of Clarkson University, in Potsdam, N.Y., and his colleagues recently tested a new kind of electrode, which, when implanted in Neohelix albolabris snails and immersed in the snails’ blue, bloodlike hemolymph, produced a small, steady supply of electricity over a period of months. The researchers reported the work in March in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Continue reading Snails in a Race for Biological Energy Harvesting
Category Archives: IEEE Spectrum
Optical Fiber Watches Wounds
Monitoring a wound as it heals should get easier thanks to a new kind of optical fiber that could become a part of everyday bandages. The fiber’s coating alters in color in response to changes in acidity, a key health indicator in wounds. The core of the fiber carries light to and from an attached device, which caregivers could use to monitor a wound in real time, says Bastien Schyrr, a Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering at the University of Fribourg, in Switzerland, who last month presented results of a laboratory trial in which the enhanced bandage detected acidity changes in a solution containing human serum. Continue reading Optical Fiber Watches Wounds
Swiss Scientists Design a Turbine to Fit in Human Arteries
Coaches admire athletes for showing a lot of heart, and poets praise the organ’s passions, but engineers see the human cardiovascular system otherwise. The heart is a pump in a prime location, brimming with energy for the taking, says biomedical engineer Alois Pfenniger. So together with colleagues at the University of Bern and the Bern University of Applied Sciences, in Switzerland, Pfenniger has tested small turbines designed to fit inside a human artery, like an implantable hydroelectric generator. Continue reading Swiss Scientists Design a Turbine to Fit in Human Arteries
Acoustic Energy Harvesters Gaining Volume
Where some people hear noise, Jeong Ho You hears energy. “Acoustic energy is everywhere,” he says. And with the help of a tiny resonating chamber, he wants to trap some of that energy and convert it into a low-amperage current for use in small electronic devices. You, a mechanical engineer at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, will be presenting the results of a computer simulation of a resonating chamber design at next month’s Acoustical Society of America meeting in Seattle. He then plans to build a device to see how his idea holds up in the lab. Continue reading Acoustic Energy Harvesters Gaining Volume