Ingestible Battery

Researchers at MIT have developed an ingestible battery that’s powered by stomach acid. This technology could be used for drug delivery and internal medical procedures, along with other wearable technology. “We need to come up with ways to power these ingestible systems for a long time. We see the GI tract as providing a really unique opportunity to house new systems for drug delivery and sensing, and fundamental to these systems is how they are powered,” said MIT researcher Giovanni Traverso. Continue reading for a picture of the delivery device.

Ingestible Battery

“The researchers scaled that principle down by attaching their own zinc and copper electrodes to the outside of a small, ingestible device containing a temperature sensor and a 900 MHz transmitter. Like in the lemon, the stomach acid can carry the electric current from the zinc to the copper and power the device, which, when tested in pigs, was able to take temperature readings and then send that data wirelessly, every 12 seconds, to a receiver up to 2 m (6.6 ft) away,” according to Inhabitat.

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