Posted on 09/27/2012 8:28:36 PM PDT by neverdem
Dissolvable electronic materials could be used in medical implants and environmentally friendly gadgets.
A team of researchers has designed flexible electronic components that can dissolve inside the body, and in water. The components could be used to make smart devices that disintegrate once they are no longer useful, helping to alleviate electronic waste and enabling the development of medical implants that don’t need to be surgically removed.
So far, the team has designed an imaging system that monitors tissue from within a mouse, a thermal patch that prevents infection after a surgical site is closed up, solar cells and strain and temperature sensors. The project is led by John Rogers, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Fiorenzo Omenetto, a biomedical engineer at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. The two say that after several years of work, they and their colleagues can now make just about any kind of dissolving, high-performance electronic or optical device. Their work is described today in Science1.
The project really took off in 2009, when the researchers brought together2 Rogers’ expertise on flexible silicon electronics and Omenetto’s tough, biocompatible silk. The silk is made by processing and moulding proteins from silkworm cocoons to make thin sheets that conform and stick to tissues, such as the surface of the brain. By changing the processing conditions, Omenetto can control how long it takes the silk proteins to break down when wet. The researchers then placed Rogers’ silicon integrated circuits together with light-emitting diodes and other electronic devices on Omenetto’s silk. They've since demonstrated numerous devices, including brain interfaces that take very sensitive electrical measurements, but although the devices showed no adverse effects in early animal tests, they didn’t completely dissolve — the metals were left behind. And having silicon floating around under the...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
I like it. A lot better than dumping the stuff in a landfill.
Ping
I think China was using them in MP3 players 4 years ago.
Hope it works out better than GMO’s, pshychotropic drugs, vaccines etc.
There are safe ways to incinerate this stuff.
What do we do? Bury it in the sea or send it into space.
Come on!
Reelleee?
A friend, an engineering physicist, working for a giant defense contractor in the 1980’searly 90’s were working on IC chips that continued to have it's circuits grow, even after fabrication.
Complex electronic circuits would not have its silicon components stop growing at the slicing/dicing, then encapsulation stages, but continue to grow within the IC.
Eventually, timed to the requested evolution of the IC, the growing electronic circuitry would grow beyond their IC pathways, boundary points, then short out.
I have no idea of what happened to this technology, but what a great way of selling sophisticated weaponry to an ally, and withhold the upgraded IC electronics, unless your regime continues to support the US interests. Otherwise all the mechanics you bought, ain't worth nothing!
I wonder if these electronics are ROHS complient...
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