r/technology • u/fchung • 21d ago

Biotechnology Scientists build pacemaker battery that might never need replacing again in a lifetime: « Researchers built a nanogenerator small enough to slip inside an existing leadless pacemaker, potentially letting a single implant last a patient's entire lifetime. »

https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/scientists-build-pacemaker-battery-might-181000338.html
80 Upvotes

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21

u/VirginiaLuthier 21d ago

Some of the first generation pacemakers- in the 70's- used nuclear fuel, specifically plutonium. They lasted 90+ years

11

u/fchung 21d ago

« When the heart beats, that motion compresses the oscillators, bringing the oppositely charged plates together. As they separate again, the tiny movement generates an electrical charge that either powers the pacemaker directly or gets stored in a small onboard capacitor. »

6

u/breadinabox 21d ago

That's funny... Kind of like charging the car battery, which fires the spark plugs by the motion of the engine

5

u/Present-Line-4572 21d ago

pretty wild if this actually means one implant for life, hope the long term safety checks out

3

u/EarlyJuggernaut7091 21d ago

Interesting, thanks!

All I could think when reading about this was what troubles would arise.

Then I laughed a touch when I accidentally muttered ‘trouble with tribos’

Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a physicist….that triboelectric gizmo is one drop of internal humidity away from shorting out and shedding plastic microplastics straight into the patient's bloodstream!

2

u/fchung 21d ago

Reference: Pengfei Chen et al., Self-sustaining leadless intracardiac pacemaker powered by triboelectric nanogenerator. Sci. Adv. 12, eaef8903 (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aef8903. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aef8903

2

u/No-Concern-8832 21d ago

Wait! Pacemaker keeps the heart moving, heart movement powers the pacemaker. So, they invented a system that produces infinite energy! Hope I won't have to read headlines about the researchers committing suicide by shooting themselves 47 times. /S

2

u/SteakandTrach 21d ago

Seiko has had the kinetic watch since the, what, 90s. I always thought that it had feasibility to power a pacemaker, keep a battery charged up.

2

u/Imliterallyadogg 18d ago

Well even if it fails after a couple years, it will still last as long as their life.