Thanks to These Glucose-Powered Microchips, Cyborgs Are One Step Closer

If your vision of the future ever involved tiny jet-packs and blinking battery belts, then you’re dead-ass wrong, because your jet pack is probably more likely to be plugged into your spinal cord than some re-chargable battery belt pack, according to a recent development from the folks over at MIT. In the past couple decades, human existence may have taken a giant leap into the once unimaginable realm of cyborgs, robots, and gadgets unattached to power outlets (helloooo rechargeable batteries, solar powered desktop cell phone charging things), which is great, except it’s brought about the modern semi-crisis of how the heck do we power all our stuff?

And while recent technological advances might point to solar powered or rechargeable fuel cells and Jetson-like battery packs, scientists are now looking into perhaps the most over looked fuel cell of all: our human bodies. In reality, the silicon chip (64 mm by 64 mm), developed as part of a long term research project at Sarpeshkar lab led by Rahul Sarpeshkar, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, is much more likely to power robotic limb appendages and other human medical “add-ons” than cell phones, but the possibilities of creating a human cyborg-interfacing, glucose fuel cell that interfaces with your brain and spinal chord opens up a seemingly infinite torrent of useful applications… at least in my imagination.

The cell itself actually contains no biological components, being fabricated entirely out of silicon and platinum. So it acts like a standard semiconductor, except this semiconductor would strip glucose of electrons to create a small electrical current. All this is better and more scientifically explained in MIT’s write up in the June 12 issue of PLoS ONE:

Our fuel cell is configured in a half-open geometry that shields the anode while exposing the cathode, resulting in an oxygen gradient that strongly favors oxygen reduction at the cathode. Glucose reaches the shielded anode by diffusing through the nanotube mesh, which does not catalyze glucose oxidation, and the Nafion layers, which are permeable to small neutral and cationic species. We demonstrate computationally that the natural recirculation of cerebrospinal fluid around the human brain theoretically permits glucose energy harvesting at a rate on the order of at least 1 mW with no adverse physiologic effects. Low-power brain–machine interfaces can thus potentially benefit from having their implanted units powered or recharged by glucose fuel cells.

Of course the graphic representation of this makes is seem like doctors would have to cut an infinite black hole into your skull, but the relatively unobtrusive chip is more likely to be placed around your spinal chord fluid as opposed to requiring a full on lobotomy.

So there you have it, batteries of the future. This alternate fuel cell may only be in early stages of prototyping, but someday it may mean we can stop buying expensive disposable batteries, at least for the stuff we attach to our bodies. As a Type 1 diabetic patient whose insulin pump is already wireless and chomps a whopping pack of AAA batteries a month, this development is really enticing. Hey maybe future models could even take all the extra sugar we eat and transform it into electrical current! We could solve America’s obesity crisis, diabetes epidemic, AND create energy in the process! Are you listening Obama?

At any rate, in its current state, this little medical marvel is able to produce 3.4 µW cm^(-2) steady-state power and up to 180 µW cm^(-2)peak power, which granted is not going to power a cell phone any time soon, but it’s start. Take that Duracell.

• The Magical Way to Charge a Cell Phone During a War
• The Navy Is Bringing Solar Power Underwater
• Bass-Powered Medical Sensor Prescribes Rap for Incontinence