NEWS
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Blood-powered biosensors
There are dozens of projects underway around the globe, investigating a
wide range of electronics technologies based on tiny nano machines that
will travel through our bloodstream or our digestive system, or can be
injected directly into a tumour. Once in place, such devices will
be able to sense and detect, monitor and communicate, and deliver drugs
or treatment. Wireless biosensors, for example, are expected to
be available to measure blood pressure or detect cancer biomarkers.
One feature they all have in common is a power requirement. Techniques such as energy scavenging and energy harvesting are already being developed for various applications: wireless sensor networks, for example, for environmental and other large scale monitoring systems. Although the medical sector has more stringent demands and safety issues, the principles are the same, researchers say.
The vision outlined for the not too distant future, involves devices such as biosensors or cell-monitoring nanomachines to be powered by nanogenerators. These nanogenerators will harvest energy from blood or other fluid flow, muscle contractions, ultrasonic vibrations or acoustic waves.
In one project, researchers in the US are banking on building a nanogenerator based on barium titanate nanowires, to convert mechanical energy to electrical power. Their work has already demonstrated that barium titanate nanowires can generate 16 times more energy than conventional zinc-oxide nanowires from the same amount of vibration. However, research continues into zinc-oxide nanowires, which have already been proven to be non-toxic to biological systems, and may well be much easier to grow into the necessarily complex arrays, than barium titanate versions.
One feature they all have in common is a power requirement. Techniques such as energy scavenging and energy harvesting are already being developed for various applications: wireless sensor networks, for example, for environmental and other large scale monitoring systems. Although the medical sector has more stringent demands and safety issues, the principles are the same, researchers say.
The vision outlined for the not too distant future, involves devices such as biosensors or cell-monitoring nanomachines to be powered by nanogenerators. These nanogenerators will harvest energy from blood or other fluid flow, muscle contractions, ultrasonic vibrations or acoustic waves.
In one project, researchers in the US are banking on building a nanogenerator based on barium titanate nanowires, to convert mechanical energy to electrical power. Their work has already demonstrated that barium titanate nanowires can generate 16 times more energy than conventional zinc-oxide nanowires from the same amount of vibration. However, research continues into zinc-oxide nanowires, which have already been proven to be non-toxic to biological systems, and may well be much easier to grow into the necessarily complex arrays, than barium titanate versions.
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