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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."
Information on this from the university itself can be found here (not much info, but more technical than the article)
I thought the only implanted component was powered by induction from outside.
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About 6 years for a pacemaker. And by that time technology has advanced so much that you want a new pacemaker, so they never change the batteries in pacemakers, but they just put a new pacemaker in.
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This should be insightful not funny. Those things can build up quite a charge.
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.
An other down side for betavoltic batteries is that they never actually stop generating power during their usable life span. A normal battery only `generates' electricity while it is connected to a circuit - a betavoltic cell constantly generates power which must be either used or wasted (although there's no reason you couldn't run the CPU in low-power mode running SETI@Home or something when the chemical battery is full).
The other main down side is that they gradually lose power over time. Every half-life (12.3 years for Tritium), the power output halves, meaning it will take twice as long to recharge your chemical battery. Of course, it is possible to extract the remaining tritium from the cell and re-use it, but this will require effort (and energy).
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This does not work particularly well.
First, RF energy is fairly weak. Second, it is readily absorbed by tissues and water. Third, even the lowest forward voltage rectifiers still need more than 0.1V to conduct while antenna voltages are typically under 0.01V.
It would be possible to use a high-Q resonnant circuit to boost the voltage to a rectifiable level but such circuits are effective only over a very small frequency band which pretty much requires a tuned source, effectively ruling out most random external sources.
Since cell. phones transmit at most 1W while talking and are likely to be more than 1m away from such a coil and not directly in front of them, the power density would be under 1mW per square inch. Add skin absorbption (assuming the coil is directly under the skin) and you are left with less than 500uW, assuming there is always at least one phone operating at its maximum output power within 1m in front of your coiled side.
Possible? Yes, if the typical implant requires less than 100uW and there is always someone talking on his/her cell. phone within ~2m of you 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Practical? No.
BTW, your North-America 1900MHz RF-charged pace-maker would not work in 1800MHz Europe and areas that either have no cell. service or have already upgraded to G3.
Region-dependent life-saving devices? I'll pass.
The grandparent is mildly funny but not a bit insightful, probably because the poster is unaware of the physics behind static electricity.
First, the idea of using static electricity to power devices inside a human is pretty hard to implement because in order to be useful, a device would need to be connected to both of the mutually charged components, and that potential difference will have to be transformed into DC at the battery's voltage of around 1-9 V.
Whichever piece of clothing is on the person's skin will have the same potential as that person, whose body is highly conductive as far as static electricity is concerned. That takes care of one side, as our device is already very well connected to the human.
So how will one gain access to the charge on the other piece of clothing? Have the person wear a layer of tinfoil over the outer garment? Sounds less than practical in the summertime. Have him drag a metal chain over any carpets he walks over? Folks, we're trying to improve quality of life here, not worsen it.
Now, having a charge of a few microcoulombs with a potential difference of maybe 20,000 volts, how are we going to transform it to a usefully large current at battery voltage? Hint: Transformers need AC to work, not DC. The microelectronics used to chop up DC into AC hate high voltages.
There's a reason why there are no (or virtually no) applications that use lightning or static electricity as an energy source.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
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.
I think that means that you can charge it during these 12 years without loss in intensity or quality in the signal delivered. But not that you don't need to charge it for 12 years.
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
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