Nano Today
Volume 33, August 2020, 100882
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Review
Triboelectric nanogenerator for healthcare and biomedical applications

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nantod.2020.100882Get rights and content

Highlights

  • A summarized view of the fundamentals of the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is presented.

  • Promising applications in different biomedical and healthcare sectors are discussed in detail.

  • Future perspectives and challenges for the commercialization of TENG based healthcare devices are provided.

Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) can convert various types of mechanical energy into electricity via coupling of contact electrification and electrostatic induction. The wide range of materials, device designs, high output power are few of the TENG advantages. The human body and internal organ motions can serve as an excellent energy source for TENG based self-powered healthcare applications. This review highlights the past 7-year development in TENG based biomedical and healthcare devices. A summary of TENG applications, including drug delivery, neural prosthesis, cell modulation, circulatory system, microbial disinfection, gene transfection, hair regeneration, biodegradable electronics, is presented. However, miniaturization, long-term stability, encapsulation, and in-vivo performance are the challenges that need to be addressed before any clinical trials. In the future, overcoming the problems will make TENG as an alternative power source for the biomedical and healthcare applications.

Introduction

Biomedical and healthcare devices are paramount to monitor, evaluating, and recording physiological signals. Recent developments in the area of biocompatible, biodegradable materials, device miniaturization, and power consumption extended the device applications as a cardiac sensor, pacemaker, drug delivery, cell stimulation, etc. [[1], [2], [3], [4], [5]]. These devices provide a better quality of life to millions of patients across the world [6]. However, a durable uninterrupted power source is the primary requirement for the functioning of healthcare devices. The current market is dominated by lithium-ion batteries, which suffer from a limited lifetime, are bulky and complicated to recycle. However, the recent advances in the field of biocompatible batteries in the future may resolve the issue of recycling [7]. The battery needs to be replaced by surgery, which created financial and physical suffering for the patients. Therefore, the utilization of biomechanical energy to power the devices plays a pivotal role in the development of a self-sustainable system. Recently, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) was proposed to convert the mechanical energy to electricity with the unique advantage of easy fabrication, a wide choice of materials and device designs [[8], [9], [10], [11]]. The small movements of human organs and bodies can be harnessed for the development of self-powered medical devices. However, few challenges need to be addressed before the commercialization of TENG based biomedical devices.

In this review, first, a brief description of the fundamentals of TENG is summarized. Then we summarized the specific application of TENG in the field of biomedical and healthcare devices (Fig. 1) followed by conclusions and future challenges. Fig. 2 illustrates the frame of the article. In the future, TENG can serve as a highly promising candidate for the commercialization of self-powered healthcare devices.

Section snippets

Fundamentals of TENG

The triboelectric effect can be easily observed in our daily life and occurs when two distinct materials come in contact with each other. In many industries, it is considered an adverse effect due to the damages it causes. However, the utilization of the triboelectric effect led to the development of Van de Graff generator and friction machine [12,13]. Wang et al., in 2012, invented the TENG which works by coupling of triboelectric effect (contact electrification) and electrostatic induction [8

TENG for pacemakers

The cardiac pacemakers stimulate the heart muscles to regulate the heartbeat by using an electrical impulse. The abnormal heart rate can result in angina, dizziness, and severe condition, even heart failure. The pacemaker uses the battery as an electric source, which has a limited life span. Due to limited life-time, the battery needs to be replaced, and surgery is necessary. The surgery causes inconvenience requires money, and takes a long time for healing, which is undesirable. However,

TENG for cell modulation

Cell proliferation is the increase in the number of cells defined by cell differentiation or by a balance between the cell divisions and cell deaths [38]. Electrical stimulation (ES) is one of the methods used to enhance the differentiation of the cells leading to cell proliferation [39]. TENG can be a potential candidate for electrical stimulation with desirable advantages [18,40,41].

TENG for nerve stimulation

The peripheral and central nervous system (PNS and CNS) coordinates body actions by sending and receiving signals. CNS and PNS are critical for the functioning of the nervous systems [62]. In many nerve injuries, the transmission of neural signals to the muscles gets deteriorated dramatically. The low-level electrical stimulation can be helpful for the patients having CNS injuries. The electrical stimulation helps in restoring the activity of neurons or target muscles [3,62].

Lee et al. reported

TENG for wound healing and tissue repairing

The wounds like venous related ulceration, diabetic foot is non-healing in nature and affecting a significant population in the world [[78], [79], [80], [81]]. Thus, they require enormous healthcare expenditure. Electric stimulation (ES) is one of the attractive wound healing approaches imitating the natural healing mechanism [82,83]. ES leads to tissue repairing by cell regulation. The ES was well reported to decrease edema, increase blood flow, leads to fibroblast proliferation, cause

TENG for neural prosthesis

A neural prosthesis is the assistive devices critical for rehabilitation. The neural prosthesis can help to recover neural damage by substituting for a sensory-motor or cognitive function [90]. In 2013, Zhang et al. designed a sandwich-shape TENG comprises of a freestanding Al film placed between two PDMS layers having micro/nanoscale structures, as shown in Fig. 11A1 [89]. Fig. 11A1 illustrates the creation of micro/nano structures with the help of photolithography and deep reactive ion

TENG for drug delivery

Implantable and on-demand drug delivery systems have great potential for site-specific treatment with the advantage of excellent efficiency, controlled, and sustained release [[94], [95], [96]]. Implantable devices can be used for various diseases like cancer, diabetes, ocular, etc. The one key disadvantage of such devices is the requirement of the power source, which is lithium (Li) ion battery in most of the cases. The battery has a fixed lifetime, after which they need to be removed and

TENG for hair regeneration

Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disorder resulting in hair loss. Recently, electric stimulation was reported as an alternative to medicine for hair loss [103,104]. Electrical stimulation induces electrotrichogenesis (ETD), which is believed to promote hair follicle (HF) proliferation, regulate the secretion of hair growth factors, thus induces hair regeneration [[105], [106], [107]].

Yao et al., in 2019, reported an m-ESD, a wearable electric stimulation device driven by a mechanical motion for

TENG for gene delivery

The electro-transfection is one of the most common non-viral gene delivery method based on electroporation. The advantages of electro-transfection include high efficiency, convenience, and can be applied to broad types of cells. Electro-transfection works by utilizing electric pulses to make cells transiently permeable [[111], [112], [113], [114], [115], [116]]. The transiently permeable cells can easily take charged biomolecules like genes, drugs, and protein, etc. The current scenario is

Inactivation by electroporation

High EF sterilization has the advantage of short-time treatment; the generation of no by-products thus is widely reported for the food and milk disinfection [117,118]. The high EF can also be used for water treatment. The EF exceeding 106 Vm−1 promotes microbial disinfection by causing membrane disruption and cell electroporation [119,120]. The TENG is a suitable candidate for self-powered microbial inactivation that can be used for water decontamination.

Jiang et al. demonstrated a TENG coupled

TENG for healthcare monitoring

TENG is crucial for self-powered healthcare monitoring. The physiological parameters like respiratory rate, heartbeat, blood pressure (BP) need to be monitor regularly in case of various diseases, and change in these parameters may be a sign of threatening conditions. TENG has several advantages like cheap, material, and design flexibility, reasonable power which makes it suitable for in-vivo and in-vitro healthcare monitoring [10,11,19,41].

TENG as biodegradable energy source

Implantable devices (ID) are crucial for medical treatment and improves patient life. ID comprises of biodegradable, and flexible materials are the most suitable candidate for medical purposes [[149], [150], [151]]. TENG with biodegradable properties is one of the promising candidates for ID devices. TENG also has excellent potential for transient health care sensing and therapeutics [150].

Zheng and co-workers, in 2016, developed an implantable TENG comprise of biodegradable materials [63]. The

Summary, future perspective, and challenges

In this review, the advancement in the TENG for implantable, healthcare, and biomedical applications are systematically summarized. The utilization of TENG for medical devices, therapeutics, etc. has been extended by the development in the materials, miniaturized power management circuits, and device designs. The voluminous advancement soon can lead to substantial progress in the commercialization of TENG based self-powered systems. Fig. 23A depicts the current scenario; the cell lines and

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Gaurav Khandelwal: Conceptualization, Writing - original draft, Investigation, Writing - review & editing. Nirmal Prashanth Maria Joseph Raj: Resources, Investigation. Sang-Jae Kim: Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (2018R1A4A1025998, 2019R1A2C3009747).

Gaurav Khandelwal is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the Department of Mechatronics Engineering at Jeju National University, South Korea where he is recipient of Brain Korea fellowship. He holds a Bachelor and Master degree in Nanotechnology from Centre for Converging Technologies, U.O.R, India. He worked as Project Associate at Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T), Delhi India. He also worked as a research intern in the field of “Peptide based nanofibers” at Institute of Nano Science and

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    Gaurav Khandelwal is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the Department of Mechatronics Engineering at Jeju National University, South Korea where he is recipient of Brain Korea fellowship. He holds a Bachelor and Master degree in Nanotechnology from Centre for Converging Technologies, U.O.R, India. He worked as Project Associate at Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T), Delhi India. He also worked as a research intern in the field of “Peptide based nanofibers” at Institute of Nano Science and Technology (I.N.S.T), India. His current research area includes triboelectric nanogenerators, self-powered sensors and systems, biomaterials, nanomaterial synthesis and characterization.

    Nirmal Prashanth Maria Joseph Raj is currently pursuing his PhD at the Department of Mechatronics Engineering in Jeju National University, Jeju, South Korea where he is a scholarship recipient from the Brain Korea Program. He has a Master of Philosophy and Master of Science in Physics from Bishop Heber college, Bharathidasan university, Tamilnadu, India and Bachelors of Science in Physics degree from St. Josephs College, Bharathidasan university, Tamilnadu, India. His research interest includes piezoelectric materials and its application for self-powered systems and sensors.

    Prof. Sang Jae Kim is a professor in the Department of Mechatronics Engineering and the Department of Advanced Convergence Technology and Science in Jeju National University, Republic of Korea. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Communication Engineering from Tohoku University, Japan. He was a visiting research scholar in materials science department at the University of Cambridge, UK and at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA as well as a senior researcher at the National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS), Japan. His research disciplines are based on nanomaterials and systems for energy and electronics applications, covering Josephson devices, MEMS, and nano-bio sensors.

    1

    Nanomaterials and System Lab, Major of Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of Applied Energy System, Jeju National University, Jeju 690-756, South Korea.

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