Princeton researchers develop silicone implants that generate energy

Princeton researchers have developed a new kind of silicone implant that can generate energy from the movements of the bodily area in which it is placed.

The researchers achieved this by adding piezo-electric lead zirconate titanate to silicone, creating a material that generates electricity when the wearer breathes, walks and moves.

The technology can be used to power pacemakers, mobile phones and other electronic devices (though the cheeky folks at The Register in the U.K. pictured a more, well, imaginative use).

The material is actually composed of ceramic nanoribbons embedded in silicone rubber sheets -- strips so narrow that 100 fit side-by-side in a millimeter. The piezoelectric setup generates electricity when flexed, and researchers say it's "highly efficient" at converting mechanical energy to electrical energy.

Placed in shoes, electricity generated could power a portable media player during a workout.

Placed against the lungs, the act of breathing could power pacemakers instead of the batteries used today that must be surgically removed.

"The beauty of this is that it's scalable," said Yi Qi, a postdoctoral researcher who works with project leader and Princeton professor Michael McAlpine. "As we get better at making these chips, we'll be able to make larger and larger sheets of them that will harvest more energy."

Better still, the material flexes when electrical current is applied to it, allowing for the potential to be used in microsurgical devices.

A paper on the new material, titled "Piezoelectric Ribbons Printed Onto Rubber for Flexible Energy Conversion," was published online Jan. 26 in Nano Letters, a journal of the American Chemical Society.

The team's research was funded by the U.S. Intelligence Community, a cooperative of federal intelligence and national security agencies.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com