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Emerging trends in bioenergy harvesters for chronic powered implants

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Abstract

The widening gap between the short battery life (<8 years) and patients’ life expectancy (20 years) is a growing concern for long-term implantable devices and adds to outpatient costs. This gap coupled with significant advancements in circuit, device design, and lowered power consumption (<1 mW) has refueled the interest in implantable energy harvesters.

As the complexity of implantable devices is increasing, the size and power requirements of implantable devices have shrunk by more than double over the past few decades. However, the functionality or lifespan of the devices is often found to be limited due to shortage of power. With more than 50% of the device size being occupied by the battery alone, longevity of such implantable devices has garnered huge concern over the years. Fueled by the demand of additional biosensors coupled to such devices, implantable energy harvesters, capable of harvesting the body’s chemical, thermal, or mechanical energy over a long period of time, have gained tremendous popularity. Among these technologies, implantable glucose fuel cells provide a promising method to generate a small yet continuous supply of power. Implantable fuel cells tap into the available free blood glucose to generate electricity. With the trend moving toward the use of semiconductor technologies for glucose-based fuel cells, fabrication of reliable and effective technology is within feasible limits. Realization of such implantable power sources can shift the burden from commonly used lithium-ion batteries by utilizing physiological resources. The present review focuses on recent developments on abiotic glucose fuel cell for bioenergy harvesting.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by National Science Foundation grants (ECCS 1128677, ECCS 1309686). We gratefully acknowledge the partial financial support from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Intel Corporation, 5200 NE Elam Young Pkwy, Hillsboro, OR, 97124, USA

    Tushar Sharma

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78705, USA

    Sahil Naik

  3. Nanoshift LLC, 2000 Powell Street, 530 Emeryville, CA, 94608, USA

    Ashwini Gopal

  4. Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, 14 Engineering Drive, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA

    John X. J. Zhang

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  1. Tushar Sharma
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  2. Sahil Naik
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Correspondence to Tushar Sharma.

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Sharma, T., Naik, S., Gopal, A. et al. Emerging trends in bioenergy harvesters for chronic powered implants. MRS Energy & Sustainability 2, 7 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1557/mre.2015.8

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