Center for Self-powered Actuation, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, 04763, South Korea.
Lintec of America Nano-Science & Technology Center Richardson, TX, 75081, United States.
Biosens Bioelectron. 2020 Sep 15;164:112318. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2020.112318. Epub 2020 May 22.
Various studies about harvesting energy for future energy production have been conducted. In particular, replacing batteries in implantable medical devices with electrical harvesting is a great challenge. Here, we have improved the electrical harvesting performance of twisted carbon nanotube yarn, which was previously reported to be an electrical energy harvester, by biscrolling positively charged ferritin protein in a biofluid environment. The harvester electrodes are made by biscrolling ferritin (40 wt%) in carbon nanotube yarn and twisting it into a coiled structure, which provides stretchability. The coiled ferritin/carbon nanotube yarn generated a 2.8-fold higher peak-to-peak open circuit voltage (OCV) and a 1.5-fold higher peak power than that generated by bare carbon nanotube yarn in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) buffer. The improved performance is the result of the increased capacitance change and the shifting of the potential of zero charges that are induced by the electrochemically capacitive, positively charged ferritin. As a result, we confirm that the electrical performance of the carbon nanotube harvester can be improved using biomaterials. This carbon nanotube yarn harvester, which contains protein, has the potential to replace batteries in implantable devices.
已经进行了各种关于为未来能源生产而采集能源的研究。特别是，用电能采集来替代可植入医疗设备中的电池是一个巨大的挑战。在这里，我们通过在生物流体环境中双卷曲带正电荷的铁蛋白蛋白，提高了先前报道的作为电能采集器的扭曲碳纳米管纱的电能采集性能。采集器电极是通过双卷曲铁蛋白（40wt%）在碳纳米管纱中并将其扭成螺旋结构制成的，从而提供了可拉伸性。在磷酸盐缓冲盐溶液（PBS）缓冲液中，螺旋铁蛋白/碳纳米管纱产生的峰峰值开路电压（OCV）比裸碳纳米管纱高 2.8 倍，峰值功率高 1.5 倍。性能的提高是由于电化学电容和带正电荷的铁蛋白引起的电容变化和零电荷电势的变化所致。因此，我们确认可以使用生物材料来提高碳纳米管采集器的电性能。这种含有蛋白质的碳纳米管纱采集器有可能替代可植入设备中的电池。
