- Researchers have developed a miniature soft lithium-ion battery that could be used as a defibrillator to control heart rhythm during surgery.
- The flexible lithium-ion battery is constructed by assembling biocompatible hydrogel droplets.
- The state-of-the-art device is the smallest soft lithium-ion battery with the highest energy density.
- The research opens the way to developing tiny bio-integrated devices, with a range of applications in robotics, biology, and medicine.
The development of tiny, soft and biocompatible batteries to power minimally invasive biomedical devices is of critical importance. Here the authors present a microscale soft rechargeable lithium-ion battery based on the surfactant-supported assembly of silk hydrogel droplets. Scale bar: 400 μm. Image credit: Yujia Zhang.
A team led by researchers from Oxford Chemistry have made a significant step towards realising miniature, soft batteries for use in a variety of biomedical applications, including the defibrillation and pacing of heart tissues. The work has been published this week in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering.
The development of tiny smart devices, smaller than a few cubic millimeters, demands equally small power sources. For minimally invasive biomedical devices that interact with biological tissues, these power sources must be fabricated from soft materials. Ideally, these should also have features such as high capacity, biocompatibility and biodegradability, triggerable activation, and the ability to be controlled remotely. To date, there has been no battery that can fulfil these requirements all at once.
To address these requirements, researchers from the University of Oxford’s Department of Chemistry and Department of Pharmacology have developed a miniature, soft lithium-ion battery constructed from biocompatible hydrogel droplets. Surfactant-supported assembly (assembly aided by soap-like molecules), a technique reported by the same group last year in the journal Nature, is used to connect three microscale droplets of 10 nanolitres volume. Different lithium-ion particles contained in each of the two ends then generate the output energy.
The tiny battery features important capabilities that enable a variety of biomedical applications, including powering drug molecule release, heart defibrillation and microrobotic energy delivery. Image credit: Yujia Zhang.
Dr Yujia Zhang (Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford), the lead researcher for the study and a starting Assistant Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne says:
Our droplet battery is light-activated, rechargeable, and biodegradable after use. To date, it is the smallest hydrogel lithium-ion battery and has a superior energy density’ said . ‘We used the droplet battery to power the movement of charged molecules between synthetic cells and to control the beating and defibrillation of mouse hearts. By including magnetic particles to control movement, the battery can also function as a mobile energy carrier.
Proof-of-concept heart treatments were carried out in the laboratory of Professor Ming Lei (Department of Pharmacology), a senior electrophysiologist in cardiac arrhythmias. He said:
Cardiac arrhythmia is a leading cause of death worldwide. Our proof-of-concept application in animal models demonstrates an exciting new avenue of wireless and biodegradable devices for the management of arrhythmias.
Professor Hagan Bayley (Department of Chemistry), the research group leader for the study, said:
The tiny soft lithium-ion battery is the most sophisticated in a series of microscale power packs developed by Dr Zhang and points to a fantastic future for biocompatible electronic devices that can operate under physiological conditions.
The researchers have filed a patent application through Oxford University Innovation. They envisage that the tiny versatile battery, particularly relevant to small-scale robots for bioapplications, will open up new possibilities in various areas including clinical medicine.