Edible battery for implants

2023: Battery Announcement

In mid-April 2023, a team of researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology created a fully edible and rechargeable battery of materials that are usually included in our daily diet.

The research was carried out by the group of Mario Caironi, coordinator of the Laboratory of Printed and Molecular Electronics at the Center of the Italian Institute of Technology (ITI) in Milan. Kaironi focused on studying the electronic properties of food and its by-products to combine them with edible materials and create new edible electronic materials. In 2019, Caironi won a €2 million grant for a project that explores the field of edible electronics.

Fully edible implant battery developed

Edible electronics is an emerging field that can have a major impact on the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal (GI) diseases, as well as monitoring food quality. One of the most interesting tasks in the development of future edible electronic systems is the implementation of edible power sources.

This edible battery is also very interesting for the energy storage community. Building safer batteries without the use of toxic materials is a challenge we face as the demand for batteries grows. While our edible batteries will not be able to power electric vehicles, they are proof that batteries can be made from safer materials than current lithium-ion batteries. We believe that they will inspire other scientists to create safer batteries for a truly sustainable future, "said study co-author Ivan Ilich.

The ITI research group was inspired by biochemical redox reactions occurring in all living beings and developed a battery that uses riboflavin as the anode and quercetin as the cathode. Activated carbon was used to increase electrical conductivity, and the electrolyte was water-based. The separator needed in each battery to prevent short circuits was made from nori seaweed, which is used in land. The electrodes were then encased in beeswax, from which two contacts of edible gold emerged on a cellulose derivative support.

The battery cell operates at a voltage of 0.65 volts, low enough not to create problems in the human body when it gets into it. The device can provide a current of 48 μA for 12 minutes or several microamperes for more than an hour, which is sufficient to power small electronic devices such as low power LEDs for a limited time.^[1]

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