UCLA, University of Connecticut scientists design supercapacitor that could devices safer, more durable

The supercapacitor invented by researchers from UCLA and the University of Connecticut could lead to pacemakers and other implantable medical devices that last a lifetime. Photo credit: Islam Mosa/University of Connecticut and Maher El-Kady/UCLA

Researchers from UCLA and the University of Connecticut have designed a biofriendly energy storage system – a biological supercapacitor – which operates using charged particles, or ions, from fluids in the human body. The device is harmless to the body’s biological systems, and it could lead to longer-lasting cardiac pacemakers and other implantable medical devices.

The UCLA team was led by Richard Kaner and Connecticut researchers were led by James Rusling.

Pacemakers, powered by traditional batteries, eventually run out of power and must be replaced – another surgery and risk of infection – and batteries contain toxic materials that could endanger the patient if they leak. So, researchers propose storing energy in devices without a battery. The supercapacitor they invented charges using electrolytes from biological fluids and, it would work with another device called an energy harvester, which converts heat and motion from the human body into electricity that is captured by the supercapacitor.

“Combining energy harvesters with supercapacitors can provide endless power for lifelong implantable devices that may never need to be replaced,” says Maher El-Kady, a UCLA postdoctoral researcher and a co-author of the study.

Research and development is steady in supercapcitor design and use in wearable medical device and for implantables. Past articles on Today’s Medical Developments include:

Flexible supercapacitor raises bar for volumetric energy density

Tiny Bendy Power Supply for Even Smaller Portable Electronics

James’ Bond: A Graphene/Nanotube Hybrid

Today’s pacemakers are about 6mm to 8mm thick, and about the same diameter as a 50-cent coin. The supercapacitor is only 1µm thick and can maintain its performance for a long time, bend and twist inside the body without any mechanical damage, and store more charge than the energy lithium film batteries of comparable size.

The biosupercapacitor is comprised of graphene layered with modified human proteins as an electrode, a conductor through which electricity from the energy harvester can enter or leave. The platform could eventually also be used to develop next-generation implantable devices to speed up bone growth, promote healing, or stimulate the brain, says Kaner, who also is a member of UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute.

Although supercapacitors have not yet been widely used in medical devices, the study shows that they may be viable for that purpose.

“In order to be effective, battery-free pacemakers must have supercapacitors that can capture, store, and transport energy, and commercial supercapacitors are too slow to make it work,” El-Kady says. “Our research focused on custom-designing our supercapacitor to capture energy effectively, and finding a way to make it compatible with the human body.”

Among the paper’s other authors are the University of Connecticut’s Challa Kumar, Ashis Basu and Karteek Kadimisetty.

The research was supported by the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and a National Science Foundation EAGER grant.

"The cutting tool industry reported numbers are supporting the positive feelings that exist in the Domestic Market,” says Brad Lawton, Chairman of AMT’s cutting tool product group.

March U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $200.05 million according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This total, as reported by companies participating in the Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) collaboration, was up 14.3% from February’s $174.98 million and up 8.4% when compared with the total of $184.57 million reported for March 2016. With a year-to-date total of $548.08 million, 2017 is up 5.9% when compared with 2016.

These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals reported by the companies participating in the CTMR program. The totals here represent the majority of the U.S. market for cutting tools.

“The cutting tool industry reported numbers are supporting the positive feelings that exist in the Domestic Market,” says Brad Lawton, Chairman of AMT’s cutting tool product group. “This is a very welcome improvement and support for the Trump Administration’s pro manufacturing policies”

Johan Israelsson, president of Sandvik Hyperion adds, “It is clear that there is a much stronger customer demand across all sectors of the global market that we serve. Although there is some tendency to rebuild inventories as one driver, we are also experiencing an underlying market growth. It is especially encouraging to see optimism within the oil and gas industry after a very difficult period.”

Reliable and smart multi-cell platform enables continuous, automated 3D printing with only minor operator intervention.

Stratasys Ltd. has unveiled the Stratasys Continuous Build 3D Demonstrator. The new platform is composed of a modular unit with multiple 3D print cells working simultaneously and driven by a central, cloud-based architecture. To set new standards in additive manufacturing (AM) throughput, the Stratasys Continuous Build 3D Demonstrator is designed to produce parts in a continuous stream with only minor operator intervention, automatically ejecting completed parts and commencing new ones.

Each 3D print cell can produce a different job to help enable mass customization projects. Additional cells can be added at any time to the scalable platform to increase production capacity as demand requires. Automatic queue management, load balancing and architecture redundancy further lead to accelerated throughput as jobs are automatically routed to available print cells. If a single print cell fails, the job will be automatically rerouted to the next available cell.

Target applications include education rapid prototyping labs and environments that can benefit from zero tooling production and from a zero inventory supply chain.

“The Stratasys Continuous Build 3D Demonstrator is an important milestone in the company’s long term vision to make additive manufacturing a viable solution for volume production environments,” says Scott Crump, Stratasys co-founder and CIO. “It combines our FDM print quality, GrabCAD control and monitoring, and a new multi-cell, scalable architecture to create a breakthrough manufacturing platform.”

A variety of Stratasys customers, including designers and manufacturers, have begun using the Continuous Build 3D Demonstrator to enhance their offerings and explore new business opportunities. These include:

This partnership will simplify the process of finding the right cutting tools for customers' manufacturing jobs.

MachiningCloud and Kyocera SGS Precision Tools (KSPT) jointly announce their partnership to provide KSPT product data on the Cloud.

MachiningCloud represents a new channel through which KSPT customers will be able to provide their customers with the digital product data needed to run today's data-hungry shop. This partnership will simplify the process of finding the right cutting tools for customers' manufacturing jobs, as they will have direct access to current and complete tooling data without the hassle of searching through printed catalogs and multiple websites to find ideal tooling.

Customers of KSPT will be able to increase productivity and achieve greater accuracy by easily downloading descriptive, usage and geometric information directly into their shop floor software, such as CAM, simulation, and tool management systems.

“One of the most important goals of KSPT is to be easy to work with as a supplier. The MachiningCloud data platform is yet another way for KSPT to achieve this goal. We anticipate many new business opportunities will result due to the easy implementation of KSPT product data in a standardized application-based format, thus driving more Value at the Spindle," says Mark Stockinger, vice president of sales and marketing at KYOCERA SGS Precision Tools.

“We are excited to help customers save time and increase efficiency by offering Kyocera SGS Precision Tools product data on the Cloud. KSPT customers will be able to quickly find the right tools for their jobs without spending too much time searching through various resources. All they need will be in one place", says Christophe Rogazy, principal product manager of MachiningCloud.

This automated machine could reduce a surgical procedure from 2 hours to 2-1/2 minutes by replacing hand drills for one type of complex cranial surgery.

Researchers at the University of Utah have developed a computer-driven automated drill, similar to those used to machine automotive parts, that could play a pivotal role in future surgical procedures. The drill produces fast, clean, and safe cuts, reducing the time a wound is open and the patient is anesthetized – one type of complex cranial surgery can be 50x faster than standard procedures, decreasing from 2 hours to 2-1/2 minutes –  reducing the incidence of infection, human error, and surgical cost.

To perform complex surgeries, especially cranial surgeries, surgeons typically use hand drills to make intricate openings, adding hours to a procedure.

“It was like doing archaeology,” says William Couldwell, a neurosurgeon at University of Utah Health. “We had to slowly take away the bone to avoid sensitive structures.”

He saw a need for a device that could alleviate this burden and make the process more efficient. “We knew the technology was already available in the machine world, but no one ever applied it to medical applications,” says Couldwell, who led an interdisciplinary team at the U to bring the drill into reality.

“My expertise is dealing with the removal of metal quickly, so a neurosurgical drill was a new concept for me,” explains A. K. Balaji, associate professor in mechanical engineering at the U. “I was interested in developing a low-cost drill that could do a lot of the grunt work to reduce surgeon fatigue.”

The team developed the drill from scratch to meet the needs of the neurosurgical unit, as well as developed software that sets a safe cutting path.

First, the patient is imaged using a CT scan to gather bone data and identify the exact location of sensitive structures, such as nerves and major veins and arteries that must be avoided. Surgeons use this information to program the cutting path of the drill.

“The software lets the surgeon choose the optimum path from point A to point B, like Google Maps,” Balaji says. In addition, the surgeon can program safety barriers along the cutting path within 1mm of sensitive structures. “Think of the barriers like a construction zone. You slow down to navigate it safety,” Balaji says.

The drill does the heavy lifting by removing most of the bone, similar to a mill, accurately and rapidly. “It’s like Monster Garage, except instead of machining a part, we are machining the skull,” Couldwell says. Couldwell applied the new drill to the translabyrinthine opening, a particularly complex jigsaw-like shape that circumnavigates the ear.

“The access is through the temporal bone which is a hard bone with strange angles,” Balaji says.

According to Couldwell, this particular cut requires a lot of experience and skill to perform it safely. “We thought this procedure would be a perfect proof of principle to show the accuracy of this technology,” he said.

The translabyrinthine surgery is performed thousands of times a year to expose slow-growing, benign tumors that form around the auditory nerves. This cut is not only difficult, the cutting path also must avoid several sensitive features, including facial nerves and the venous sinus, a large vein that drains blood from the brain. Risks of this surgery include loss of facial movement.

The device also has an automatic emergency shut-off switch. During surgery, the facial nerve is monitored for any signs of irritation.

“If the drill gets too close to the facial nerve and irritation is monitored, the drill automatically turns off,” Couldwell notes.

The new drill could reduce the duration of this complex procedure from two hours for hand-drilling by an experienced surgeon to two and a half minutes. The shorter surgery is expected to lower the chance of infection and improve post-operative recovery. It also has potential to substantially reduce the cost of surgery, because it shaves hours from operating room time.

The research team has demonstrated the safety and speed of the drill by performing this complex cut, but Couldwell stresses that it can be applied to many other surgical procedures.

“This drill can be used for a variety of surgeries, like machining the perfect receptacle opening in the bone for a hip implant,” Couldwell says.

The varied application of the drill emphasizes another factor that drew Balaji to the project.

“I was motivated by the fact that this technology could democratize health care by leveling the playing field so more people can receive quality care,” Balaji says.

Couldwell and his team are examining opportunities to commercialize the drill to ensure that it is more widely available for other surgical procedures.

Couldwell collaborated with colleagues from University of Utah Departments of Neurosurgery and Mechanical Engineering.

The research was funded by a Technology Initiative Grant through the University of Utah.