Slashdot Mirror
New Battery Technology Powers For 12 Years
wellington map writes "University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists say they are developing a new lithium battery technology capable of making batteries smaller, last longer and, soon, accept a charge from outside the body without the need for surgery. These organosilicon batteries are projected to power tiny implantable devices for more than 12 years."
MADISON, Wis., Oct. 3 (UPI) -- University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists say they are developing super-charged tiny lithium batteries to help treat nervous system and other disorders.
Key word there, 'developing'. The article gives basically no information at all about how it works.
I remember a story about human-powered pacemakers and such though - did those pan out? Seems that those would be more useful than these low-current batteries.
I never thought about the need of batteries before, but of course! My question is, what sort of batterylife do todays "versions" have?
...'built-in' penis pump!
From the article:
A critical advantage of the new battery technology is lifespan: "If you're going to implant these things, you want a (battery) lifetime of at least 10 years," said West, whose organosilicon batteries are projected to power tiny implantable devices for more than 12 years.
I presume that "10 year minimum lifetime" is the typical lifespan of the the receiver of the implantable device.
Sleep: Recharging batteries without surgery for many millennium.
Information on this from the university itself can be found here (not much info, but more technical than the article)
I'll gladly implant my iPod mini if that means it will run for 12 years.
And it won't event scratch if I nudge it between my liver and stomach!
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
What I want to see are giant Telsa coils at airports, restaurants, etc. that shoot bolts of electricity out and recharge people's pacemakers. What could possibly go wrong?
I'm agneglectic, too lazy to care if there is a God.
In Korea, only old people use pacemak.. Oh wait.
...for my remote control, watches, and wallclock.
wtf are you talking about?
1. Build an induction coil inside a plush chair
2. Choose an unpleasant relative (who has a remotely-rechageable implant).
3. Offer the chair (and step back).
5. Sue the battery manufacturer!!
(Now, if you pool your implant-malfunctioning relatives with other parties you can do class-action suit instead)
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
"New Battery Technology Powers For 12 Years ...developing a new lithium battery technology capable of making batteries smaller, last longer and, soon, accept a charge from outside..."
Are they sure they want to be putting Apple out of business like that?
(chortle-chortle)
You need a FREE iPod Nano
12 years, eh. So if I get one implanted at 18, it won't have to replace it before I go to Sanctuary on my 30th birthday. Cool.
Buying & changing batteries for people like me with a cochlear implant is a major pain - something like this would be fantastic.
What about preserving power in a capacitor and using a coil to recharge it from background radiation? By now people are constantly in a sort of electromagnetic field, so if you switch between two of them you should be able to generate a current, with a few proper diodes etc. you could charge a capacitor with that... given people that are still alive and enough mobile phone use, it would work?
You might just get into a fight with the people next to you, since you're in a way using their mobile phone battery to reload your pacemaker. On the other hand, calling in public and in hospitals would become accepted and even encouraged.
When they're ready, I'll buy 6 (or 8?) of them and put them into my Sega Game Gear!
Finally, it will last longer than an hour without changing batteries!!
^^
Don't get your hopes up on this actually making it in some form to the consumer market. Those wonderful little double-a batteries you buy constantly have a huge upcharge on them. That's why when you go to any electronics store (I typically saw a $9 price slapped on a cost of $1.40) you'll ALWAYS get asked if you want to buy their brand of way overpriced batteries, no matter what the product is. These things make businesses profit, they will keep the old style as long as they have a breath left in them.
But I used to work for a large battery company, and I can guarentee you they will always ensure they have a short life.
More batteries to buy.
And about 90% of a battery is recyclable...Scrap places will buy them for around $1 per battery.
Best thing I've seen for implanted devices, such as cochlear implants is an article from two years ago by some japanese researchers than managed to build a fuel cell based on blood.
2 78131.html
It mimics the processes of mitochondria in human cells, i.e. uses glucose and O2 to create some form of ionisation.
So why have a battery that expires in 12 years when you could just have something that is indeffinately powered by your own body processes, and lose a little weight in the process.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/03/1059849
Did they ever solve the problem with dirty catalyst in that one?
Blood isn't exactly clean.
Dirty catalyst is the reason most all modern production fuel cells use hydrogen or a solvent for fuel.
But when are they going to get me a laptop that can last 12 years bewteen charges!?
Instead of lithium organo-what ever why not use decay from an alpha source with a long (20+years) halflife? the alpha emmissions can be shielded by a modest tianium/glass shell
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
and, soon, accept a charge from outside the body without the need for surgery
How do they do that? Do they implant a receptacle for a Nokia charger into your skin?
Some university PR hack had a quota to fulfill for last month. This isnt really news. Anybody can try at "developing" a better battery. And recharging from outside the body has nothing to do with the battery-- it's been succesfully done for decades with a little coil of wire. Absolutely nothing to see here.
There have been several products that allow you to recharge things like cell phones and iPods wirelessly. Here is one I just saw yesterday:
0 /2/1401
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2005/1
I guess the big deal with this "announcement" is the projected battery life. The wireless charging aspect is existing technology, and makes sense when you consider their target market - implantables.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
i have a casio fx-3800p scientific calculator that has had the same battery for 13 years and it's still going strong!
ScuttleMonkey seems to have been posting alot of trash lately, without reading and/or understanding the article. Whose with me to replace this idiot with someone more competent/tech savvy?
Sounds good until the first one leaks and kills it's host. Lithium in the human body is a dangerous substance to mess with. To make a battery out of it, requires that you cause it to become unstable, shed electrons. Lithium also makes a great propellant and explosive. Lithium is also used as a drug. Unfortunately it's use is precluded in patients with significant renal or cardiovascular disease, severe debilitation or dehydration, or sodium depletion, since the risk of lithium toxicity is very high in such patients. These are exactly the same patients that would be candidates to receive such devices. The risk of leakage may be very small, but the toxicity associated with such an event would be fatal in most of the patients that would be receiving the device. I highly doubt that they could ever receive approval for the battery with these facts being known.
I have had electricity coming out of the power points on my walls for a lot longer than that!
Seriously, I make a point never to use disposable batteries if I can avoid it. Fossil fuels suck balls, but mains power is still more efficient than any battery technology will ever be.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I've heard of this technology its called RFID
Radio frequency induce voltage to tiny device, stored in small capacitor/lithium battery.
and as a side effect, read the firmware health of the pacemaker.
I always thought of Creationism as the Raving Right's version of the Loony Left's Anthropogenic Global Warming-brightmal
Hey, just pass a 9v current through the human body through electrodes on the fingers. Have the 9v charger charge the battery while it is still in the body.
Or place a metal contact on a finger so a person could plug their finger into a charger.
Would it work?
Once again we see a story that is misleading, probably in an attempt to simply get accepted by the Slashdot editors.
The battery has a lifetime of 12 years, meaning that it can be discharged and charged enough times to last for 12 years before it needs to be replaced. In similar terms, my notebook battery lasts around 2 years. After 2 years of normal use the battery's capacity has been reduced to the point I need a new one.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Well, there are already rechargeable medical implantable devices based on Li-Ion on the market today. I'm not certain why the article seems too imply this is not already going on.
Dr. Gregory House: We've been here for half an hour and you haven't sat down; that tells me its location. You haven't told me what it is; that tells me it's humiliating. You have a little birdie carved under your arm; that tells me you have a high tolerance for humiliation, so I figure it's not hemarrhoids. I've been a doctor twenty years, you're not going to surprise me.
Young Man: It's an MP3 player.
Dr. Gregory House: Is it... is it because of the size, the shape, or is it the pounding bass line?
I wonder how dependant on the body's natural charge this '12 years' is. I know some people who can wear a watch for a couple years on one battery while other people will kill a watch battery in a month or two. By those numbers, some people would be able to use one of these things for 20 years while someone else will barely live off them for 12 months.
Our property management company must have seen a comercial on tv. They insist we use 10 year lithium batteries in our smoke detectors. They were brand new detectors when we started and they've never even been triggered by smoke. We get two years at the most out of one. Three replacements in five years. They are junk for longevity. This isnt just one detector. All three kill these batteries.
Those damn inductive devices are dangerous, but recharge without surgery is important, since most people won't tolerate a plug. I have an alcohol fuel cell that resides in my stomach to power my pacemaker, and I don't get so many DUIs now. You can recognize us by our copious CO2 belches. It's a lot better than the old days when I had to swallow the extension cord & then plug it all in.
Patent pending.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Medtronic's neurostimulator (for pain treatment) lasts at least 9 years. The Japanese government sponsored the development of a rechargable pacemaker, but found that IC and manufacturing advances made devices more than 5 years old obselete. Recently, advances in data storage and wireless distance/data transfer have given new features to mature treatments.
m l
http://www.medtronic.com/neuro/restore/noFlash.ht
Dammit, I got a +5 insightful for basically a troll post, yet this gem goes unrewarded. +5 Insightful?!?!? FFS
this sounds like a plan muhammar's been sitting on for a while. i wanted to mod the post, but there's no option for "disturbing", "worrying", or "it just might work". help me out here guys.
---- I was woken up this morning by a face full of fur. Damn cat thought my head made a good pillow.
Imagine! they invented an inductive-charged device!
My --ing razor has --ing been working that way since 1997. That's no --ing innovation.
(sorry Mr.Pratchett)
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
University of Wisconsin mad scientists say they are developing a new lithium battery technology
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
(Well, for the first twelve years anyways, we'll see who gets the last laugh then!)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
i have a kodak disk camera that i got around 1983-84. the camera broke over a decade ago, but the battery still powers the mechanics & the flash. the battery was not replaceable. i pull it out every year or so & press the button to see if it still runs.
Why, my pacemaker has been running for 12 yNO CARRIER
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Hey editors - some time during the last year, Slashdot added a "Power" section for stories like this.
Actually I would have entitled it "Energy" but most people confuse the terms anyway.
Additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page.
We never harness electricity from lightning because it's too easy or half a dozen other reasons, but attracting lightning in the lightning belt to shimmy down a metal pole and parallel to a capacitive circuit shouldn't be too difficult to devise. A field full of "lightning attracting towers" would pull storms where you want them, possibly over to less populated areas. The advantage then becomes a great incentive to build such a field. The good thing is that the government & the laws can't prevent someone from building such a system. You can't legislate against using lightning like the power companies legislated out getting induction power from their power lines. We don't use lightning, but we could. http://tinyurl.com/4txmk