Issue 3, 2021 - Fully biodegradable supercapacitor implant successfully developed

Fully biodegradable supercapacitor implants were successfully developed

On January 18, Lanzhou University released news that the School of Physical Science and Technology of the university, together with the University of Houston and the School of Basic Medicine of Lanzhou University, has successfully developed a thin, flexible biodegradable supercapacitor implant with high energy density and power density
.
The device is all composed of green, safe and biocompatible materials, which can be completely degraded and absorbed in the organism after the completion of the work task, excreted through natural metabolism, and removed without secondary surgery, which is expected to provide an energy solution
for the energy supply problem of the next generation of biodegradable implantable medical electronic devices or other transient electronic devices.

Implantable medical electronic devices have attracted much attention in recent years, and their current energy supply mainly relies on implantable primary batteries, which will occupy most of the mass and volume of the entire device, and need to be replaced or removed
by secondary surgery after the battery is exhausted or after the end of work.
Because batteries contain toxic or hazardous substances, they require strict rigid encapsulation and biocompatibility on
the outside before implantation.
Based on this background, a variety of implantable energy supply alternatives have been proposed, but these schemes currently have various drawbacks such as non-degradable, mechanical rigidity, large scale, and low energy, which seriously limit the use
of medical electronic devices.
Therefore, it has always been a great challenge
to realize a thin, flexible, small-size, fully biodegradable energy supply solution.