Biobatteries. Anyone have knowledge or desire to make one?

HylyxHylyx
edited February 2015 in Coatings, transdermals, other implants
Hi all! 
 Super happy to find this community.
I've been toying and doing rudimentary research (a lot of current info seems locked up in $$$$ science journals) about using a biobattery to make electricity directly from blood glucose and get around the whole power problem.
 Does anyone have any experience or knowledge they'd like to share? Also would love expertise and discussion on making one. I'm no chemist but I am a machinist, and my shop is cool with letting me use their equipment on my off time. So I can help prototype things out if anyone needs that, I regularly hold tolerances at +/- .0005" (.012mm) and have done much tighter if needed.

Let's make a thing! I volunteer myself to be the guinea pig if we end up with something practicable.
--Helyx
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Comments

  • ThomasEgiThomasEgi
    Welcome Helyx,

    and welcome to the world of science where everyone uses metric.
    If you need access to certain papers people around here may be able to help you out, given you provide the name/id/whatever of the document in question.

    About blood and devices getting in touch with it, that's a very dangerous thing. Devices in contact with blood have even harder requirements than regular implants. One tiny mistake and you'll clog up your blood vessels and die from a stroke. Try not to volunteer unless you are literally dead-sure it's going to work out fine.
  • glimsglims
    Hi Helyx

    Anytime you need a paper that is behind a wall, message me and I will add it to the community library dropbox folder that is accessible from the wiki.

    Blood powered bio batteries are still in the very very early stages of testing. If you find a paper with a solid method that people think they can duplicate, I am sure that would be a good project.

    However, implanting this in yourself would be a really bad idea. ThomasEgi is spot on with how dangerous blood exposed devices in the body can be. Doing such a thing is exponentially more difficult than doing a normal implantation.
  • CassoxCassox
    No need to bathe it in blood though. Interstitial fluid also has glucose... about the same as blood give or take 20 minutes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2903977/).
  • CassoxCassox
    In fact, the MIT glucose fuel cell is hypothesized for use in CSF rather than blood. It uses platinum as a catalyst. Interesting. This might be easier to do than you'd think. Worth looking into for sure.
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