Graphene For The Advancement Of Biotelemetry

Graphene shows increasing utility in nanotechnology and is nearing its potential for medical applications. Recently, a research group from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) developed the smallest battery in the world.

The construction of a battery the size of a grain of rice represents a significant technical achievement in biotelemetry. This battery is partly composed of fluorinated graphene and has been successfully employed to track the development of salmon in rivers. The addition of fluoride to graphene enhances its electrochemical properties, thereby enabling it to maintain higher voltages. It also permits more efficient discharge. The sensors used in previous experiments operated only briefly and cannot track the fish throughout their migration.

Jie Xao, one of the PNNL engineers, designed the graphene-based microbattery. The battery was assembled layer by layer and then rolled into a compact form. The layers served as separators between a lithium-based anode and a layer of fluorinated graphene. This method maximised the electrodes' surface area without increasing the battery's size. The battery can power a 744-microsecond signal, transmitted every three to five seconds, for approximately one month. Developing such a microbattery required three years of work by Z. Daniel Zeng's group.

This technology provides a practical solution for monitoring specific aspects of patient health, for external medicine applications, and for implantable medical devices. Typically, current devices do not operate long enough to supply the required capacity. Consequently, the fluorinated graphene-based microbattery developed by a team at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) may address these issues.

If this microbattery is further developed into a reliable component of medical devices, patient internal condition monitoring could become more convenient and efficient.