In Vivo Self‐Powered Wireless Transmission Using Biocompatible Flexible Energy Harvesters

TLDR

Implantable biomedical devices require repeated battery‑replacement surgeries that pose bleeding, inflammation, and infection risks, and although wireless communication is essential, it has not yet been integrated with in‑vivo piezoelectric power sources due to their high power demands. The study aims to create self‑powered implantable devices that combine wireless communication with in‑vivo energy harvesting to alleviate patient pain, psychological stress, and financial burden. This is achieved by employing a high‑performance single‑crystalline PMN‑PZT piezoelectric harvester that captures mechanical energy from heartbeats to drive wireless transmission. The harvester produces an open‑circuit voltage of 17.8 V and a short‑circuit current of 1.74 µA—4.45‑fold and 17.5‑fold higher than previous in‑vivo piezoelectric harvesters, respectively—and demonstrates excellent biocompatibility.

Abstract

Additional surgeries for implantable biomedical devices are inevitable to replace discharged batteries, but repeated surgeries can be a risk to patients, causing bleeding, inflammation, and infection. Therefore, developing self‐powered implantable devices is essential to reduce the patient's physical/psychological pain and financial burden. Although wireless communication plays a critical role in implantable biomedical devices that contain the function of data transmitting, it has never been integrated with in vivo piezoelectric self‐powered system due to its high‐level power consumption (microwatt‐scale). Here, wireless communication, which is essential for a ubiquitous healthcare system, is successfully driven with in vivo energy harvesting enabled by high‐performance single‐crystalline (1 − x )Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 −( x )Pb(Zr,Ti)O 3 (PMN‐PZT). The PMN‐PZT energy harvester generates an open‐circuit voltage of 17.8 V and a short‐circuit current of 1.74 µA from porcine heartbeats, which are greater by a factor of 4.45 and 17.5 than those of previously reported in vivo piezoelectric energy harvesting. The energy harvester exhibits excellent biocompatibility, which implies the possibility for applying the device to biomedical applications.