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Technology uses plant biomass waste for self-powered biomedical devices:
An innovation turning waste material into stretchable devices may soon provide a new option for creating self-powered biomedical inventions.
A team from Purdue University used lignin to create triboelectric[*] nanogenerators. TENGs help conserve mechanical energy and turn it into power. Lignin is a waste byproduct from the pulp and paper industries, and it is one of the most abundant biopolymers on Earth.
[...] Wu said the lignin-based triboelectric devices also could function as self-powered sensors to detect and monitor the mechanical activities from the human body in applications such as health monitoring, human-machine interface, teleoperated robotics, consumer electronics and virtual and augmented reality technologies.
Journal Reference:
Yukai Bao, Ruoxing Wang, Yunmei Lu, Wenzhuo Wu. Lignin biopolymer based triboelectric nanogenerators [open], APL Materials (DOI: 015794APM)
[*] Triboelectric effect.
One man's kitchen scraps are another man's cyber-machines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @04:38AM (1 child)
So... using plant matter to power biomedical functions.
Sounds like what we dd before we started consuming Big Macs and french fries 24/7.
How bout we eat the plants and don't clog up our arteries with so much beef fat then we won't need Chinese grad students to invent plant-based polymers to keep our narrowed arteries from completely closing shut.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @12:16PM
Interesting.