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Podcast: Nanometer Fuel Cells & Ultrathin Speakers

In this episode, we talk about why minimization of speakers and energy storage devices is crucial for the next generation of electronics and medical devices.

Farbod Moghaddam

fromThe Next Byte

07 Jun, 2022.

Silicon chip with 30 individual glucose micro fuel cells, seen as small silver squares inside each gray rectangle. Image: Kent Dayton

Topic

energy

EPISODE NOTES

(0:50) - Glucose Fuel Cell

(13:46) - Paper-thin Loudspeaker

About the podcast:

Every day, some of the most innovative universities, companies, and individual technology developers share their knowledge on Wevolver. To ensure we can also provide this knowledge for the growing group of podcast listeners, we started a collaboration with two young engineers, Daniel Scott Mitchell & Farbod Moghaddam who discuss the most interesting content in this podcast series.

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AboutMouser Electronics

Mouser Electronics is a worldwide leading authorized distributor of semiconductors and electronic components for over 800 industry-leading manufacturers. We specialize in the rapid introduction of new products and technologies for design engineers and buyers. Our extensive product offering includes

Industry

Electronics

Headquarters

Mansfield, TX, USA

Founded

1964

Company Size

1001-5000

AboutThe Next Byte

The Next Byte Podcast is hosted by two young engineers - Daniel and Farbod - who select the most interesting tech/engineering content on Wevolver.com and deliver it in bite-sized episodes that are easy to understand regardless of your background. If you'd like to stay up to date with our latest ep

Industry

Entertainment

Headquarters

Washington D.C., DC, USA

Founded

2020

Image: Silicon chip with 30 individual glucose micro fuel cells, seen as small silver squares inside each gray rectangle. Image: Kent Dayton

Ultrathin fuel cell uses the body's own sugar to generate electricity

Engineers have developed a glucose power source that could fuel miniature implants and sensors.

17 May, 2022.

This article was discussed in our Next Byte podcast.

The full article will continue below.

This article was first published on MIT News.

Glucose is the sugar we absorb from the foods we eat. It is the fuel that powers every cell in our bodies. Could glucose also power tomorrow’s medical implants?

Engineers at MIT and the Technical University of Munich think so. They have designed a new kind of glucose fuel cell that converts glucose directly into electricity. The device is smaller than other proposed glucose fuel cells, measuring just 400 nanometers thick, or about 1/100 the diameter of a human hair. The sugary power source generates about 43 microwatts per square centimeter of electricity, achieving the highest power density of any glucose fuel cell to date under ambient conditions.

The new device is also resilient, able to withstand temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius. If incorporated into a medical implant, the fuel cell could remain stable through the high-temperature sterilization process required for all implantable devices.

The heart of the new device is made from ceramic, a material that retains its electrochemical properties even at high temperatures and miniature scales. The researchers envision the new design could be made into ultrathin films or coatings and wrapped around implants to passively power electronics, using the body’s abundant glucose supply.

“Glucose is everywhere in the body, and the idea is to harvest this readily available energy and use it to power implantable devices,” says Philipp Simons, who developed the design as part of his PhD thesis in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). “In our work we show a new glucose fuel cell electrochemistry.”

“Instead of using a battery, which can take up 90 percent of an implant’s volume, you could make a device with a thin film, and you’d have a