The 1966 Sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage was something wasn’t it? A shrink ray let a CIA agent and a pilot enter the human body to perform a life saving procedure to remove a clot.  Miniature rays and pilots willing to get shrunk to get inside the human body are likely to remain in science fiction, but electronic implants, tiny enough to be able to travel through the blood stream, may become a common thing in the near future.

The biggest hurdle which held back scientists from exploring the limitless possibilities of such devices was a power source tiny enough to go with the micro-mini implant and reliable enough to power it while inside the human body.

Engineers at Stanford University have managed to overcome this hurdle. They have developed a prototype of a tiny, self-propelled device which is powered wirelessly from outside the body.  Technology, which allows miniaturizing of electronic and mechanical components has been there for a while. Scientists were however handicapped by one major hurdle, a reliable power source.

Earlier, implants such as pacemakers were stationary. But energy source was a major concern for these devices too as battery occupied the bulk of their architecture limiting the space for electronics required for them to do their intended job. Regular battery changes were the order of the day, inconvenient for both the patient and the physicians.

Stanford engineers have removed the battery out of the equation altogether and are using wireless electromagnetic power transfer.   Untill now scientists were held back by the notion that the human body doesn’t conduct high frequency waves that well. The higher the frequency the smaller the antennas for transferring it would be. This is where Stanford electrical engineer Ada Poon made her ground breaking discovery. She realized that the human body conducted high frequency waves much better than previously thought and she then focused her work on developing an antenna which was tiny enough to fit into a device small enough for a voyage through the blood vessel.

“When we extended things to higher frequencies we realized that the optimal frequency for wireless powering is actually around one gigahertz, about 100 times higher than previously thought,” said Poon, who developed an antenna of coiled wire 100 times smaller but capable of receiving power from a radio transmitter outside the body.

The research indeed throws open a lot of possibilities in the medical field. It promises to arm doctors with devices which can be directed through to blood stream to specific areas where life saving procedures like removing clots can be performed.

The voyage has just begun and a fantastic one it promises to be.

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Imagine a battery that can run for many thousands of cycles and never fail, this is exactly what Stanford researchers have created.

What makes this development outstanding is the crystalline electrode, namely a cathode with unique properties.

The following is exactly what Stanford had to say about the new battery technology:

“That is a breakthrough performance – a battery that will keep running for tens of thousands of cycles and never fail,” said Yi Cui, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, who is Wessell’s adviser and a coauthor of the paper.

The electrode’s durability derives from the atomic structure of the crystalline copper hexacyanoferrate used to make it. The crystals have an open framework that allows ions – electrically charged particles whose movements en masse either charge or discharge a battery – to easily go in and out without damaging the electrode. Most batteries fail because of accumulated damage to an electrode’s crystal structure.

Because the ions can move so freely, the electrode’s cycle of charging and discharging is extremely fast, which is important because the power you get out of a battery is proportional to how fast you can discharge the electrode.

To maximize the benefit of the open structure, the researchers needed to use the right size ions.  Too big and the ions would tend to get stuck and could damage the crystal structure when they moved in and out of the electrode.  Too small and they might end up sticking to one side of the open spaces between atoms, instead of easily passing through. The right-sized ion turned out to be hydrated potassium, a much better fit compared with other hydrated ions such as sodium and lithium.

Hydrated potassium mentioned here means  a simpler and much cheaper water based electrolyte than the organic polymer electrolyte used in lithium ion batteries.

Now, the main advantage for such a design can only be utilized if this crystalline copper hexacyanoferrate cathode is used in high-voltage set. This is to say, it needs a matching low voltage anode. Investigation of possible candidates for matching anode material continues, and there are some good targets in place for the technology already.

So far, the researchers have power grids in their cross-hairs as a battery support for solar and wind power accumulation stations.

Putting some of this nano-technological juice  into a smartphone is going to take some time, though. Conversely, don’t throw away your expensive Li-Ion/Li-Po batteries just yet.

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