Bioresorbable Self-powered Implantable Device

The interaction between medicine and technology allows the development of new implantable medical devices (IMDs) to detect or monitor diseases inside the human body. The key challenge is to supply continuous power to the IMDs.

Conventional strategy to use the implantable battery suffers from limited lifetime, maintenance problem, hazardous chemicals and requirement of periodic replacement through surgery which eventually increase patient health risk.

In this context, scavenging electricity from biomechanical energy sources using piezoelectric energy harvester is a smart strategy for realizing self-powered implantable bioelectronics, since it can harvest electric energy from inexhaustible slight motions of organs such as heart, lungs, and diaphragm.

In this regard, the devices should be flexible and at the same time biodegradable to avoid invasive removal surgery that can damage directly interfaced tissues.

Despite recent achievements in self-powered electronic devices, there is still a tremendous need to develop an efficient self-powered IMD which only relies on safe medical materials.

In this context, the focus of the project is to develop high performance natural piezo-electric polymer based biodegradable IMD which can be absorbed by the body after certain period of time without any adhere toxicity.

In addition, we will emphasize on material science, underlying concepts in mechanics and associated engineering strategies in device construction.

The key design strategies for the piezoelectric device based self-powered IMD will adopt interdisciplinary approach from materials science (nanopillar configurations), chemistry (organic bio-polymers processing), applied physics (modeling, theoretical simulation), engineering (IMD circuit design) and biology (device implantation).

This collective concept suggests a promising future across a range of fields, particularly in biomedical engineering, nanoneurotechnology and next-generation wireless implantable biomedical device.