Self‐Powered Multifunctional Transient Bioelectronics

Abstract

Controllable degradation and excellent biocompatibility during/after a lifetime endow emerging transient electronics with special superiority in implantable biomedical applications. Currently, most of these devices need external power sources, limiting their real-world utilizations. Optimizing existing bioresorbable electronic devices requires natural-material-based construction and, more importantly, diverse or even all-in-one multifunctionalization. Herein, silk-based implantable, biodegradable, and multifunctional systems, self-powered with transient triboelectric nanogenerators (T ENGs), for real-time in vivo monitoring and therapeutic treatments of epileptic seizures, are reported. These T ENGs are of customizable in vitro/in vivo operating life and biomechanical sensitivity via the adjustments of silk molecular size, surface structuralization, and device configuration. Functions, such as drug delivery and structural-integrity optical readout (parallel to electronic signals), are enabled for localized anti-infection and noninvasive degradation indication, respectively. A proof-of-principle wireless system is built with mobile-device readout and "smart" treatment triggered by specific symptoms (i.e., epilepsy), exhibiting the practical potential of these silk T ENGs as self-powered, transient, and multifunctional implantable bioelectronic platforms.

“Genetically Engineered” Biofunctional Triboelectric Nanogenerators Using Recombinant Spider Silk

“…Typically, the same PET/ITO substrates are selected as the reference friction layer of TENG in all pairwise combinations. These results indicate the intriguing output performance of RSSP‐TENG that differentiate itself from other biomaterials and merit a wide range of self‐powered applications …”

“…However, challenges still remain for large‐scale manufacturing of TENGs with high performances [so to be competitive to their conventional counterparts using organic and inorganic materials such as gold and poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)] towards real‐world applications . For example, the performance of TENGs are mainly determined and limited by the triboelectric pair materials, such as many commercially available organic materials [e.g., silk, poly(tetrafluoroethylene), poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), polyimide (PI), PDMS, fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), poly(lactic acid) (PLA), and poly(methyl methacrylate)] and inorganic ones [e.g., indium tin oxide (ITO), Al, Cu, Au, Ti, TiO 2 , Si, and SiO 2 ] . Nevertheless, efforts are needed on exploring materials via genetic engineering to design and further modulate the material properties from the gene level to increase the triboelectric effects, and importantly, to add extra (biological, in particular) functionalities on demand.…”

“…Furthermore, higher molecular weight leads to fewer chain ends and thus higher uniformity and mechanical strength in the as‐formed proteins (Figure S1, Supporting Information) . One additional advantage of the inherent uniform chain length is the outstanding transparency of RSSP/PET/ITO films (similarly after WL, inset of Figure B and Figure S2, Supporting Information), which exhibits attractive potential and benefit for optically viable applications …”

Natural and Eco-Friendly Materials for Triboelectric Energy Harvesting

“…Another highly promising material which is biocompatible, provides high mechanical strength and has a unique structure is spider silk [94][95][96]. Zhang et al [97] have demonstrated the potential of a TENG based on recombinant spider silk.…”

Skin‐Friendly Electronics for Acquiring Human Physiological Signatures

“…[14,17,20,27] The AgNWs were purchased from Aladdin with length of 200 µm. [14,17,20,27] The AgNWs were purchased from Aladdin with length of 200 µm.…”