Scientists in the US have designed an ingestible electronic device that is composed entirely of edible materials and produces its own electric current.
Since 2008, Christopher Bettinger and colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have been working on biodegradable electronics for medical devices. The team’s overarching goal is to develop electronically-active medical devices that can be implanted, are functional and break-down in the body. ‘Two issues that seem to keep coming up along the way are how will these devices be powered and how can we integrate devices with the body in a non-invasive manner?’ says Bettinger. ‘The idea of edible current sources is to serve as power supplies for medical devices that can be taken orally – so they’re non-invasive – using materials that are ingested in common diets.’
Read the full article in Chemistry World
Self-deployable current sources fabricated from edible materials
Young Jo Kim , Sang-Eun Chun , Jay Whitacre and Christopher J. Bettinger
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C3TB20183J
