‘Electric plastic’ could open door to new generation of implants and wearable tech
Self-assembling, biocompatible molecular ribbons can store energy and information
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Self-assembling, biocompatible molecular ribbons can store energy and information
Imagine a thin wristband that monitors your steps and heartbeat like an Apple Watch. Or clothing that keeps you cool with built-in air conditioning. Or even a flexible implant that could help your heart better than a bulky pacemaker. That’s the promise of a new, electrically active material researchers have created by combining short chains of amino acids called peptides with snippets of a polymer plastic. This “electric plastic,” reported this month in Nature, can store energy or record information, opening the door to self-powered wearables, real-time neural interfaces, and medical implants that merge with bodies better than current tech.
Most electronic materials are rigid or contain toxic metals, which makes it tough to design devices that conform to the body or that could be embedded within tissues. One of the few soft plastics that can be used in electronic devices is a polymer called polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), discovered in the 1940s. It has a polar structure that switches its orientation when stimulated by an external voltage—the chemical equivalent of flipping an electronic bit. However, these “ferroelectric” properties are not stable and disappear at higher temperatures. The plastic also requires high voltages to switch polarities, making it more energy intensive to operate.
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