A July 1, 2025 news item on Nanowerk highlights research into machine vision, Note: A link has been removed,
In blinding bright light or pitch-black dark, our eyes can adjust to extreme lighting conditions within a few minutes. The human vision system, including the eyes, neurons, and brain, can also learn and memorize settings to adapt faster the next time we encounter similar lighting challenges.
In an article published in Applied Physics Letters (“A back-to-back structured bionic visual sensor for adaptive perception”), researchers at Fuzhou University in China created a machine vision sensor that uses quantum dots to adapt to extreme changes in light far faster than the human eye can — in about 40 seconds — by mimicking eyes’ key behaviors. Their results could be a game changer for robotic vision and autonomous vehicle safety.
“Quantum dots are nano-sized semiconductors that efficiently convert light to electrical signals,” said author Yun Ye. “Our innovation lies in engineering quantum dots to intentionally trap charges like water in a sponge then release them when needed — similar to how eyes store light-sensitive pigments for dark conditions.”
The sensor’s fast adaptive speed stems from its unique design: lead sulfide quantum dots embedded in polymer and zinc oxide layers. The device responds dynamically by either trapping or releasing electric charges depending on the lighting, similar to how eyes store energy for adapting to darkness. The layered design, together with specialized electrodes, proved highly effective in replicating human vision and optimizing its light responses for the best performance.
“The combination of quantum dots, which are light-sensitive nanomaterials, and bio-inspired device structures allowed us to bridge neuroscience and engineering,” Ye said.
Not only is their device design effective at dynamically adapting for bright and dim lighting, but it also outperforms existing machine vision systems by reducing the large amount of redundant data generated by current vision systems.
“Conventional systems process visual data indiscriminately, including irrelevant details, which wastes power and slows computation,” Ye said. “Our sensor filters data at the source, similar to the way our eyes focus on key objects, and our device preprocesses light information to reduce the computational burden, just like the human retina.”
In the future, the research group plans to further enhance their device with systems involving larger sensor arrays and edge-AI chips, which perform AI data processing directly on the sensor, or using other smart devices in smart cars for further applicability in autonomous driving.
“Immediate uses for our device are in autonomous vehicles and robots operating in changing light conditions like going from tunnels to sunlight, but it could potentially inspire future low-power vision systems,” Ye said. “Its core value is enabling machines to see reliably where current vision sensors fail.”
Spinal cord injuries are currently incurable with devastating effects on people’s lives, but now a trial at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland offers hope for an effective treatment.
Spinal cord injuries shatter the signal between the brain and body, often resulting in a loss of function.”Unlike a cut on the skin, which typically heals on its own, the spinal cord does not regenerate effectively, making these injuries devastating and currently incurable,” says lead researcher Dr Bruce Harland, a senior research fellow in the School of Pharmacy at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland.
Before birth, and to a lesser extent afterwards, naturally occurring electric fields play a vital role in early nervous system development, encouraging and guiding the growth of nerve tissue along the spinal cord. Scientists are now harnessing this same electrical guidance system in the lab.An implantable electronic device has restored movement following spinal cord injury in an animal study, raising hopes for an effective treatment for humans and even their pets.
“We developed an ultra-thin implant designed to sit directly on the spinal cord, precisely positioned over the injury site in rats,” Dr Harland says.
The device delivers a carefully controlled electrical current across the injury site.
“The aim is to stimulate healing so people can recover functions lost through spinal-cord injury,” Professor Darren Svirskis, director of the CatWalk Cure Programme at the University’s School of Pharmacy says.
Unlike humans, rats have a greater capacity for spontaneous recovery after spinal cord injury, which allowed researchers to compare natural healing with healing supported by electrical stimulation.
After four weeks, animals that received daily electric field treatment showed improved movement compared with those who did not.
Throughout the 12-week study, they responded more quickly to gentle touch.
“This indicates that the treatment supported recovery of both movement and sensation,” Harland says.
“Just as importantly, our analysis confirmed that the treatment did not cause inflammation or other damage to the spinal cord, demonstrating that it was not only effective but also safe.”
This new study, published in a leading journal, has come out of a partnership between the University of Auckland and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. See Nature Communications.
“Long term, the goal is to transform this technology into a medical device that could benefit people living with these life-changing spinal-cord injuries,” says Professor Maria Asplund of Chalmers University of Technology.
“This study offers an exciting proof of concept showing that electric field treatment can support recovery after spinal cord injury,” says doctoral student Lukas Matter, also from Chalmers University.
The next step is to explore how different doses, including the strength, frequency, and duration of the treatment, affect recovery, to discover the most effective recipe for spinal-cord repair.
An international research team, including scientists from the Institut de Neurociències at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), has developed a new solution to reduce the immune response triggered by neural prosthetics used after limb amputations or severe nerve injuries. The approach consists of coating the electronic implants (which connect the prosthetic device to the patient’s nervous system) with a potent anti-inflammatory drug. This coating helps the body better tolerate the implant, improving its long-term performance and stability.
Neural electrode implants are commonly used in prosthetics to restore communication between the device and the nervous system. However, their long-term effectiveness can be compromised by the body’s natural immune reaction to foreign objects, which leads to the formation of scar tissue around the implant and can impair its function.
Now, a recent study published in Advanced Healthcare Materials by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Università di Ferrara, the University of Freiburg, and Chalmers University of Technology, conducted as part of the European collaborative project BioFINE, reports a novel method to improve the biocompatibility and chronic stability of these electrodes.
The technique involves activating and modifying the surface of polyimide (a material commonly used for implanted electrodes) using a chemical strategy that enables the covalent binding of the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone. This innovation allows the drug to be released at the implant site slowly over at least two months, a critical period when the immune system typically mounts its strongest response.
Biological tests showed that this approach reduces inflammation-related signals in immune cells, while maintaining the material’s biocompatibility and mechanical integrity. Animal testing further confirmed that the dexamethasone-releasing implants significantly reduce immune reactions and scar tissue formation around the device.
These findings suggest that the slow and localized release of dexamethasone from the implant surface could extend the functional lifespan of neural prostheses, offering a promising step forward in addressing the long-term challenges of implantable neurotechnology.
“This is a main step that has to be complemented by the demonstration in vivo that this coating improves the functional performance of chronically implanted electrodes in the peripheral nerves, for stimulating and recording nerve signals”, says Dr. Xavier Navarro, principal investigator of the UAB team in the BioFINE project.
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Covalent Binding of Dexamethasone to Polyimide Improves Biocompatibility of Neural Implantable Devices by Giulia Turrin, Jose Crugeiras, Chiara Bisquoli, Davide Barboni, Martina Catani, Bruno Rodríguez-Meana, Rita Boaretto, Michele Albicini, Stefano Caramori, Claudio Trapella, Thomas Stieglitz, Yara Baslan, Hanna Karlsson-Fernberg, Fernanda L. Narvaez-Chicaiza, Edoardo Marchini, Alberto Cavazzini, Ruben López-Vales, Maria Asplund, Xavier Navarro, Stefano Carli. Advanced Healthcare Materials Volume 14, Issue 21 August 19, 2025 2405004 First published online: 17 June 2025 OI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202405004
The Israeli team working on this regenerative medicine project has already (in 2022) been successful with mice. Diana Bletter’s August 21, 2025 Times of Israel article, excerpts of which can be found later in this posting, added some details that I appreciated. That said, the press release is quite accessible and informative.
What if we could restore the ability to walk to people paralyzed by injury or illness? This vision is now moving closer to reality. Three years ago, Tel Aviv University researchers succeeded in engineering a human spinal cord in the lab for the first time. Since then, progress has been rapid, with animal trials showing unprecedented success. Now, for the first time, the technology is set to be tested in human patients.
Prof. Tal Dvir, of TAU’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology, head of the Nanotechnology Center, and Chief Scientist of the biotech company Matricelf, explains: “The spinal cord is made up of nerve cells that transmit electrical signals from the brain to every part of the body. When the spinal cord is torn due to trauma — from a car accident, a fall, or a battlefield injury — this chain is broken. Think of it like an electrical cable that’s been cut: if the two parts don’t touch, the electrical signal can’t pass. The cable won’t carry electricity, and in the same way, the person can’t transmit the signal beyond the site of the injury.”
This is one of the few injuries in the human body with no natural ability to regenerate. “Neurons are cells that do not divide and do not renew themselves. They are not like skin cells, which can repair themselves after injury. They are more similar to heart cells: once damage occurs, the body cannot restore them,” notes Prof. Dvir.
Engineering a Personalized Implant
To overcome this challenge, the TAU researchers developed a fully personalized process. Blood cells are taken from the patient and reprogrammed through genetic engineering to behave like embryonic stem cells, capable of becoming any type of cell in the body.
Meanwhile, fat tissue from the same patient is used to extract substances such as collagen and sugars. These are used to produce a unique hydrogel. “The beauty of this gel is that it’s also personalized, just like the cells. We take the cells that we’ve reprogrammed into embryonic-like stem cells, place them inside the gel, and mimic the embryonic development of the spinal cord,” says Prof. Dvir.
The result is a complete three-dimensional implant. “At the end of the process, we don’t just turn the cells into motor neurons — because cells alone won’t help us — but into three-dimensional tissue: neuronal networks of the spinal cord. After about a month, we obtain a 3D implant with many neurons that transmit electrical signals. These 3D tissues are then implanted into the damaged area.”
Visualization of the next stage of the research – human spinal cord implants for treating paralysis (Photo: Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology)
From Animals to Human Patients
The researchers first tested the implant in lab animals. “We showed that we can treat animals with chronic injuries. Not animals that were injured just recently, but those we allowed enough time to pass — like a person more than a year after an injury. More than 80% of the animals regained full walking ability,” Prof. Dvir explains.
Encouraged by these results, the team submitted the findings to Israel’s Ministry of Health. “About six months ago we received preliminary approval to begin compassionate-use trials with eight patients. We decided, of course, that the first patient would be Israeli. This is undoubtedly a matter of national pride. The technology was developed here in Israel, at Tel Aviv University and at Matricelf, and from the very beginning it was clear to us that the first-ever surgery would be performed in Israel, with an Israeli patient.” he says.
Looking Ahead
The first implant in a human patient is expected within about a year. For the initial trials, the team will focus on patients whose paralysis is relatively recent — within about a year of injury. “Once we prove that the treatment works — everything is open, and we’ll be able to treat any injury,” says Prof. Dvir.
Behind the initiative are key figures from both academia and industry. Prof. Dvir founded Matricelf in 2019 together with Dr. Alon Sinai, based on the revolutionary organ engineering technology developed at TAU under a licensing agreement through Ramot, the University’s technology transfer company. The company’s CEO is Gil Hakim, while the scientific development is led by Dr. Tamar Harel-Adar and her team.
“They managed to get us to the stage of regulatory approvals so quickly — and that’s amazing,” says Prof. Dvir.
Gil Hakim, CEO of Matricelf , concludes: “This milestone marks the shift from pioneering research to patient treatment. For the first time, we are translating years of successful preclinical work into a procedure for people living with paralysis. Our approach, using each patient’s own cells to engineer a new spinal cord, eliminates key safety risks and positions Matricelf at the forefront of regenerative medicine. If successful, this therapy has the potential to define a new standard of care in spinal cord repair, addressing a multi-billion-dollar market with no effective solutions today. This first procedure is more than a scientific breakthrough, it is a value-inflection point for Matricelf and a step toward transforming an area of medicine long considered untreatable. We are proud that Israel is leading this global effort and are fully committed to bringing this innovation to patients worldwide.”
Diana Bletter’s August 21, 2025 article for The Times of Israel (h/t August 21, 2025 Google alert) covers much of the same ground as the press release but there are some new details, Note: Links have been removed,
…
Prof. Tal Dvir, head of the Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology and the Nanotechnology Center at Tel Aviv University, said his research team is now able to engineer a spinal cord that functions exactly like a natural one by implanting 3D-engineered tissue into the damaged area.
Fusion then occurs between the new tissue and the healthy areas above and below the injury that will end the paralysis.
…
The upcoming spinal cord implant surgery marks the next stage in a process that began about three years ago, when Dvir’s lab at Tel Aviv University succeeded in engineering a personalized 3D spinal cord in the laboratory.
The groundbreaking findings, published in the prestigious journal Advanced Science, demonstrated for the first time ever that mice suffering from chronic paralysis that were treated with these engineered implants started to walk — and even scamper — again.
The success rate with the engineered spinal cord was 80 percent for mice with chronic paralysis. Among those with recent or short-term paralysis, 100% of the mice walked.
…
Patients remain paralyzed because neurons do not renew
Around the world, there are over 15 million people who have suffered spinal cord injuries. Professionals can help stabilize the injury but not much else.
Dvir said that as a result, the damage only worsens. Over time, the damaged area becomes scar tissue.
“The patient remains paralyzed below the site of injury,” he said. “If the injury is in the neck, all four limbs may be paralyzed. If in the lower back, the legs will not move, and so on.”
Spinal cord injuries are one of the very few injuries in the human body that are not impacted by natural regenerative ability, Dvir explained.
“The neurons do not divide and do not renew themselves,” he said. “These cells are not like skin cells, which can heal after injury, but are more like heart cells: Once damaged, the body cannot repair them.”
“The spinal cord is composed of nerve cells that transmit electrical signals from the brain to all parts of the body,” Dvir said. “The decision is made in the brain, the electrical signal passes through the spinal cord, and from there, neurons activate the muscles throughout the body.”
When the spinal cord is severed due to trauma, such as a car accident, a fall, or a combat injury, this chain is broken.
“Think of an electrical cable that has been cut,” Dvir said. “When the two ends no longer touch, the electrical signal cannot pass. The cable will not transmit electricity, and the person cannot transmit the signal beyond the injury.”
Dvir’s team aims to fix that.
Implanting an engineered human spinal cord
Dvir said that the researchers start the process with a small biopsy from the belly.
They then take these blood cells and perform a process known as reprogramming — genetic engineering that transforms the cells into embryonic stem cell-like cells, capable of developing into any cell type in the body.
In the next step, the scientists take fatty tissue from the patient, extract key components such as collagens and sugars, and build a customized hydrogel. The embryonic stem cell-like cells are placed in this gel, and the embryonic development of a spinal cord is mimicked.
This spinal cord will then be transplanted into the human body, restoring the body’s abilities.
…
I have a link to Dvir’s company, Matricelf and a link to and a citation to the Dvir team’s 2022 study,
One more note, there is other work devoted to enable paralyzed people to walk again such as the Walk Again Project (Wikipedia entry), Note: Links have been removed,
Walk Again Project is an international, non-profit consortium led by Miguel Nicolelis, created in 2009 in a partnership between Duke University and the IINN/ELS [International Institute for Neurosciences of Natal – Edmond and Lily Safra or Instituto Internacional de Neurociências Edmond e Lily Safra; (INN-ELS)], where researchers come together to find neuro-rehabilitation treatments for spinal cord injuries,[1][2][3] which pioneered the development and use of the brain–machine interface, including its non-invasive version,[4] with an EEG.[5]
Aston University to lead the UK’s new centre to pioneer brain-inspired, energy-efficient computing technologies
The initiative will receive £5.6 million over four years from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [EPSRC]
The aim of the centre is to become a focal point for networking and collaboration on fundamental research and technology.
The UK will be getting a new centre to pioneer brain-inspired, energy-efficient computing technologies.
The UK Multidisciplinary Centre for Neuromorphic Computing is led by Aston University and will receive £5.6 million over four years from the UKRI [UK Research and Innovation] Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The aim of the centre is to become a focal point for networking and collaboration on fundamental research and technology of neuromorphic computing to address the sustainability challenges facing today’s digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence systems.
The centre will be led by the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AIPT) and will include the world-leading researchers from Aston University, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the University of Southampton, Queen Mary University of London, Loughborough University and the University of Strathclyde.
Neuromorphic computing seeks to replicate the brain’s structural and functional principles, however scientists currently lack a deep, system-level understanding of how the human brain computes at cellular and network scales. The researchers aim to tackle that challenge directly, blending stem-cell-derived human neuron experiments with advanced computational models, low-power algorithms and novel photonic hardware.
The centre team includes world-leading researchers with broad and complementary expertise in neuroscience, non-conventional computing algorithms, photonics, opto- and nano-electronics and materials science. In collaboration with policymakers and industrial partners the scientists and engineers aim to demonstrate the capabilities of neuromorphic computing across a range of sectors and applications. The centre will be supported by a broad network of industry partners including Microsoft Research, Thales, BT, QinetiQ, Nokia Bell Labs, Hewlett Packard Labs, Leonardo, Northrop Grumman and a number of small to medium enterprises. Their contribution will focus on enhancing the centre’s impact on society.
Professor Rhein Parri, co-director and neurophysiologist at Aston University said: “For the first time, we can combine the study of living human neurons with that of advanced computing platforms to co-develop the future of computing.
“This project is an exciting leap forward, learning from biology and technology in ways that were not previously possible.”
The experts aim to co-design brain-inspired neuromorphic systems by studying human neuronal function using the latest human induced pluripotent stem cell – or hiPSC technologies – and developing new computational paradigms and low-power AI algorithms. They also plan to create devices and hardware that are inspired by biological systems, like the human brain. These devices will use light – or photonic hardware – to process information. This approach will be the next big step in making computing more energy-efficient and capable of handling many tasks at the same time. They also aim to create a sustainable UK research ecosystem through training, road mapping, and international collaboration.
Professor Sergei K. Turitsyn, director of the centre and AIPT, said: “The project’s ambition is not only to develop future technologies, but also to create a new internationally known UK research brand in neuromorphic computing that will unite the UK’s best minds across disciplines and will lead to sustainable operation and a long-term impact. It’s a proud moment for AIPT and Aston University to lead this national effort.”
Professor Natalia Berloff, co-director of the centre who is based at the University of Cambridge said: “One of the most exciting aspects of neuromorphic computing is the potential of photonic hardware to deliver truly brain-like efficiency.
“Light-based processors can exploit massive parallelism and ultrafast signal propagation to outperform conventional electronics on demanding AI workloads, while consuming far less power. By combining these photonic architectures with insights from living human neurons, we aim to co-design neuromorphic systems that move beyond incremental improvements and toward a genuinely transformative computing paradigm.”
In addition, the researchers aim to tackle the increasing global energy footprint of information and communication technologies which is developing at an unsustainable pace, driven partly by the explosive growth of artificial intelligence. Today’s AI systems are built on traditional computing hardware with increasingly high-power consumption (kW), posing a barrier to scalability and sustainability. In contrast, the human brain performs complex computation and communication tasks using just 20 watts.
Professor Dimitra Georgiadou, co-director of the centre who is based at the University of Southampton added: “To address the challenge of substantially lowering the power consumption in electronics, novel materials and device architectures are needed that can effectively emulate computation in the brain and cellular responses to certain stimuli.”
The centre’s ambition goes beyond technology development as it aims to serve as a foundation for a long-term, interdisciplinary research ecosystem – actively expanding its membership and reach over time. It aims to establish a sustainable centre that continues to be a focal point for the community and will thrive beyond the initial funding period, reinforcing innovation, partnership, and impact in the field of neuromorphic computing.
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Good luck to this effort to lower power consumption.
They consume extremely little power and behave similarly to brain cells: so-called memristors. Researchers from Jülich [Forschungszentrum Juelich; Germany], led by Ilia Valov, have now introduced novel memristive components in Nature Communications that offer significant advantages over previous versions: they are more robust, function across a wider voltage range, and can operate in both analog and digital modes. These properties could help address the problem of “catastrophic forgetting,” where artificial neural networks abruptly forget previously learned information.
The problem of “catastrophic forgetting” occurs when deep neural networks are trained for a new task. This is because a new optimization simply overwrites a previous one. The brain does not have this problem because it can apparently adjust the degree of synaptic change; experts are now also talking about a so-called “metaplasticity”. They suspect that it is only through these different degrees of plasticity that our brain can permanently learn new tasks without forgetting old content. The new memristor accomplishes something similar.
“Its unique properties allow the use of different switching modes to control the modulation of the memristor in such a way that stored information is not lost,” says Ilia Valov from the Peter Grünberg Institute (PGI-7) at Forschungszentrum Jülich.
Modern computer chips are evolving rapidly. Their development could receive a further boost from memristors—a term derived from memory and resistor. These components are essentially resistors with memory: their electrical resistance changes depending on the applied voltage, and unlike conventional switching elements, their resistance value remains even after the voltage is turned off. This is because memristors can undergo structural changes—for example, due to atoms depositing on the electrodes.
“Memristive elements are considered ideal candidates for learning-capable, neuro-inspired computer components modeled on the brain,” says Ilia Valov.
Despite considerable progress and efforts, the commercialization of the components is progressing slower than expected. This is due in particular to an often high failure rate in production and a short lifespan of the products. In addition, they are sensitive to heat generation or mechanical influences, which can lead to frequent malfunctions during operation. “Basic research is therefore essential to better control nanoscale processes,” says Valov, who has been working in this field of memristors for many years. ”We need new materials and switching mechanisms to reduce the complexity of the systems and increase the range of functionalities.”
It is precisely in this regard that the chemist and materials scientist, together with German and Chinese colleagues, has now been able to report an important success: “We have discovered a fundamentally new electrochemical memristive mechanism that is chemically and electrically more stable,” explains Valov. The development has now been presented in the journal Nature Communications.
A New Mechanism for Memristors
“So far, two main mechanisms have been identified for the functioning of so-called bipolar memristors: ECM and VCM,” explains Valov. ECM stands for ‘Electrochemical Metallization’ and VCM for ‘Valence Change Mechanism’.
ECM memristors form a metallic filament between the two electrodes—a tiny “conductive bridge” that alters electrical resistance and dissolves again when the voltage is reversed. The critical parameter here is the energy barrier (resistance) of the electrochemical reaction. This design allows for low switching voltages and fast switching times, but the generated states are variable and relatively short-lived.
VCM memristors, on the other hand, do not change resistance through the movement of metal ions but rather through the movement of oxygen ions at the interface between the electrode and electrolyte—by modifying the so-called Schottky barrier. This process is comparatively stable but requires high switching voltages.
Each type of memristor has its own advantages and disadvantages. “We therefore considered designing a memristor that combines the benefits of both types,” explains Ilia Valov. Among experts, this was previously thought to be impossible. “Our new memristor is based on a completely different principle: it utilizes a filament made of metal oxides rather than a purely metallic one like ECM,” Valov explains. This filament is formed by the movement of oxygen and tantalum ions and is highly stable—it never fully dissolves. “You can think of it as a filament that always exists to some extent and is only chemically modified,” says Valov.
The novel switching mechanism is therefore very robust. The scientists also refer to it as a filament conductivity modification mechanism (FCM). Components based on this mechanism have several advantages: they are chemically and electrically more stable, more resistant to high temperatures, have a wider voltage window and require lower voltages to produce. As a result, fewer components burn out during the manufacturing process, the reject rate is lower and their lifespan is longer.
Perspective solution for “catastrophic forgetting”
On top of that, the different oxidation states allow the memristor to be operated in a binary and/or analog mode. While binary signals are digital and can only output two states, analog signals are continuous and can take on any intermediate value. This combination of analog and digital behavior is particularly interesting for neuromorphic chips because it can help to overcome the problem of “catastrophic forgetting”: deep neural networks delete what they have learned when they are trained for a new task. This is because a new optimization simply overwrites a previous one.
The brain does not have this problem because it can apparently adjust the degree of synaptic change; experts are now also talking about a so-called “metaplasticity”. They suspect that it is only through these different degrees of plasticity that our brain can permanently learn new tasks without forgetting old content. The new ohmic memristor accomplishes something similar. “Its unique properties allow the use of different switching modes to control the modulation of the memristor in such a way that stored information is not lost,” says Valov.
The researchers have already implemented the new memristive component in a model of an artificial neural network in a simulation. In several image data sets, the system achieved a high level of accuracy in pattern recognition. In the future, the team wants to look for other materials for memristors that might work even better and more stably than the version presented here. “Our results will further advance the development of electronics for ‘computation-in-memory’ applications,” Valov is certain.
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Electrochemical ohmic memristors for continual learning by Shaochuan Chen, Zhen Yang, Heinrich Hartmann, Astrid Besmehn, Yuchao Yang & Ilia Valov. Nature Communications volume 16, Article number: 2348 (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-57543-w Published: 08 March 2025
A jaw-dropping moment (for me anyway). An April 2, 2025 news item on Nanowerk announced the research,
Northwestern University engineers have developed a pacemaker so tiny that it can fit inside the tip of a syringe — and be non-invasively injected into the body.
Although it can work with hearts of all sizes, the pacemaker is particularly well-suited to the tiny, fragile hearts of newborn babies with congenital heart defects.
Smaller than a single grain of rice, the pacemaker is paired with a small, soft, flexible, wireless, wearable device that mounts onto a patient’s chest to control pacing. When the wearable device detects an irregular heartbeat, it automatically shines a light pulse to activate the pacemaker. These short pulses— which penetrate through the patient’s skin, breastbone and muscles — control the pacing.
Designed for patients who only need temporary pacing, the pacemaker simply dissolves after it’s no longer needed. All the pacemaker’s components are biocompatible, so they naturally dissolve into the body’s biofluids, bypassing the need for surgical extraction.
The study will be published on April 2 [2025] in the journal Nature. The paper demonstrates the device’s efficacy across a series of large and small animal models as well as human hearts from deceased organ donors.
“We have developed what is, to our knowledge, the world’s smallest pacemaker,” said Northwestern bioelectronics pioneer John A. Rogers, who led the device development. “There’s a crucial need for temporary pacemakers in the context of pediatric heart surgeries, and that’s a use case where size miniaturization is incredibly important. In terms of the device load on the body — the smaller, the better.”
“Our major motivation was children,” said Northwestern experimental cardiologist Igor Efimov, who co-led the study. “About 1% of children are born with congenital heart defects — regardless of whether they live in a low-resource or high-resource country. The good news is that these children only need temporary pacing after a surgery. In about seven days or so, most patients’ hearts will self-repair. But those seven days are absolutely critical. Now, we can place this tiny pacemaker on a child’s heart and stimulate it with a soft, gentle, wearable device. And no additional surgery is necessary to remove it.”
Rogers is the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Neurological Surgery at Northwestern — where he has appointments in the McCormick School of Engineering and Feinberg School of Medicine — and the director of the Querrey Simpson Institute of Bioelectronics. Efimov is a professor of biomedical engineering at McCormick and professor of medicine (cardiology) at Feinberg. Rogers and Efimov co-led the study with Yonggang Huang, the Jan and Marcia Achenbach Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering at McCormick; Wei Ouyang, an assistant professor of engineering at Dartmouth College; and Rishi Arora, the Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago.
Meeting an unmet clinical need
This work builds on a previous collaboration between Rogers and Efimov, in which they developed the first dissolvable device for temporary pacing. Many patients require temporary pacemakers after heart surgery — either while waiting for a permanent pacemaker or to help restore a normal heart rate during recovery.
For the current standard of care, surgeons sew the electrodes onto the heart muscle during surgery. Wires from the electrodes exit the front of a patient’s chest, where they connect to an external pacing box that delivers a current to control the heart’s rhythm.
When the temporary pacemaker is no longer needed, physicians remove the pacemaker electrodes. Potential complications include infection, dislodgement, torn or damaged tissues, bleeding and blood clots.
“Wires literally protrude from the body, attached to a pacemaker outside the body,” Efimov said. “When the pacemaker is no longer needed, a physician pulls it out. The wires can become enveloped in scar tissue. So, when the wires are pulled out, that can potentially damage the heart muscle. That’s actually how Neil Armstrong died. He had a temporary pacemaker after a bypass surgery. When the wires were removed, he experienced internal bleeding.”
In response to this clinical need, Rogers, Efimov and their teams developed their dissolvable pacemaker, which was introduced in Nature Biotechnology in 2021. The thin, flexible, lightweight device eliminated the need for bulky batteries and rigid hardware, including wires. Rogers’ lab had previously invented the concept of bioresorbable electronic medicine — electronics that provide a therapeutic benefit to the patient and then harmlessly dissolve in the body like absorbable sutures. By varying the composition and thickness of the materials in these devices, Rogers’ team can control the precise number of days they remain functional before dissolving.
Body fluid-powered battery
While the original quarter-size dissolvable pacemaker worked well in pre-clinical animal studies, cardiac surgeons asked if it was possible to make the device smaller. Then it would be better suited to non-invasive implantation and for use in the smallest patients. But the device was powered by near-field communication protocols — the same technology used in smartphones for electronic payments and in RFID tags — which required a built-in antenna.
“Our original pacemaker worked well,” Rogers said. “It was thin, flexible and fully resorbable. But the size of its receiver antenna limited our ability to miniaturize it. Instead of using the radio frequency scheme for wireless control, we developed a light-based scheme for turning the pacemaker on and delivering stimulation pulses to the surface of the heart. This is one feature that allowed us to dramatically reduce the size.”
To help further reduce the device’s size, the researchers also reimagined its power source. Instead of using near-field communication to supply power, the new, tiny pacemaker operates through the action of a galvanic cell, a type of simple battery that transforms chemical energy into electrical energy. Specifically, the pacemaker uses two different metals as electrodes to deliver electrical pulses to the heart. When in contact with surrounding biofluids, the electrodes form a battery. The resulting chemical reactions cause the electrical current to flow to stimulate the heart.
“When the pacemaker is implanted into the body, the surrounding biofluids act as the conducting electrolyte that electrically joins those two metal pads to form the battery,” Rogers said. “A very tiny light-activated switch on the opposite side from the battery allows us to turn the device from its ‘off’ state to an ‘on’ state upon delivery of light that passes through the patient’s body from the skin-mounted patch.”
Pulsing with light
The team used an infrared wavelength of light that penetrates deeply and safely into the body. If the patient’s heart rate drops below a certain rate, the wearable device detects the event and automatically activates a light-emitting diode. The light then flashes on and off at a rate that corresponds to the normal heart rate.
“Infrared light penetrates very well through the body,” Efimov said. “If you put a flashlight against your palm, you will see the light glow through the other side of your hand. It turns out that our bodies are great conductors of light.”
Even though the pacemaker is so tiny — measuring just 1.8 millimeters in width, 3.5 millimeters in length and 1 millimeter in thickness — it still delivers as much stimulation as a full-sized pacemaker.
“The heart requires a tiny amount of electrical stimulation,” Rogers said. “By minimizing the size, we dramatically simplify the implantation procedures, we reduce trauma and risk to the patient, and, with the dissolvable nature of the device, we eliminate any need for secondary surgical extraction procedures.”
More sophisticated synchronization
Because the devices are so tiny, physicians could distribute collections of them across the heart. A difficult color of light could illuminate to independently control a specific pacemaker. Use of multiple pacemakers in this manner enables more sophisticated synchronization compared to traditional pacing. In special cases, different areas of the heart can be paced at different rhythms, for example, to terminate arrhythmias.
“We can deploy a number of such small pacemakers onto the outside of the heart and control each one,” Efimov said. “Then we can achieve improved synchronized functional care. We also could incorporate our pacemakers into other medical devices like heart valve replacements, which can cause heart block.”
“Because it’s so small, this pacemaker can be integrated with almost any kind of implantable device,” Rogers said. “We also demonstrated integration of collections of these devices across the frameworks that serve as transcatheter aortic valve replacements. Here, the tiny pacemakers can be activated as necessary to address complications that can occur during a patient’s recovery process. So that’s just one example of how we can enhance traditional implants by providing more functional stimulation.”
The technology’s versatility opens a broad range of other possibilities for use in bioelectronic medicines, including helping nerves and bones heal, treating wounds and blocking pain.
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Caption: The tiny pacemaker sits next to a single grain of rice on a fingertip. The device is so small that it can be non-invasively injected into the body via a syringe. Credit: John A. Rogers/Northwestern University
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Millimetre-scale bioresorbable optoelectronic systems for electrotherapy by Yamin Zhang, Eric Rytkin, Liangsong Zeng, Jong Uk Kim, Lichao Tang, Haohui Zhang, Aleksei Mikhailov, Kaiyu Zhao, Yue Wang, Li Ding, Xinyue Lu, Anastasia Lantsova, Elena Aprea, Gengming Jiang, Shupeng Li, Seung Gi Seo, Tong Wang, Jin Wang, Jiayang Liu, Jianyu Gu, Fei Liu, Keith Bailey, Yat Fung Larry Li, Amy Burrell, Anna Pfenniger, Andrey Ardashev, Tianyu Yang, Naijia Liu, Zengyao Lv, Nathan S. Purwanto, Yue Ying, Yinsheng Lu, Claire Hoepfner, Altynai Melisova, Jiarui Gong, Jinheon Jeong, Junhwan Choi, Alex Hou, Rachel Nolander, Wubin Bai, Sung Hun Jin, Zhenqiang Ma, John M. Torkelson, Yonggang Huang, Wei Ouyang, Rishi K. Arora, Igor R. Efimov & John A. Rogers. Nature volume 640, pages 77–86 (2025) DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08726-4 Published online: 02 April 2025 Issue Date: 03 April 2025
This paper is behind a paywall.
With some 50 researchers involved in this work, I have not tagged each one as is my usual practice and I apologize for not tagging each and every one.
Neuromorphic (brainlike) engineering and neuromorphic computing being long time interests here, this March 26, 2025 new item on ScienceDaily caught my eye,
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can perform complex calculations and analyze data faster than any human, but to do so requires enormous amounts of energy. The human brain is also an incredibly powerful computer, yet it consumes very little energy.
As technology companies increasingly expand, a new approach to AI’s “thinking,” developed by researchers including Texas A&M University engineers, mimics the human brain and has the potential to revolutionize the AI industry.
As technology companies increasingly expand, a new approach to AI’s “thinking,” developed by researchers including Texas A&M University engineers, mimics the human brain and has the potential to revolutionize the AI industry.
Dr. Suin Yi, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Texas A&M’s College of Engineering, is on a team of researchers that developed “Super-Turing AI,” which operates more like the human brain. This new AI integrates certain processes instead of separating them and then migrating huge amounts of data like current systems do.
The Energy Crisis In AI
Today’s AI systems, including large language models [LLM] such as OpenAI [a company not an LLM] and ChatGPT [an LLM produced by OpenAI], require immense computing power and are housed in expansive data centers that consume vast amounts of electricity.
“These data centers are consuming power in gigawatts, whereas our brain consumes 20 watts,” Suin explained. “That’s 1 billion watts compared to just 20. Data centers that are consuming this energy are not sustainable with current computing methods. So while AI’s abilities are remarkable, the hardware and power generation needed to sustain it is still needed.”
The substantial energy demands not only escalate operational costs but also raise environmental concerns, given the carbon footprint associated with large-scale data centers. As AI becomes more integrated, addressing its sustainability becomes increasingly critical.
Emulating The Brain
Yi and team believe the key to solving this problem lies in nature — specifically, the human brain’s neural processes.
In the brain, the functions of learning and memory are not separated, they are integrated. Learning and memory rely on connections between neurons, called “synapses,” where signals are transmitted. Learning strengthens or weakens synaptic connections through a process called “synaptic plasticity,” forming new circuits and altering existing ones to store and retrieve information.
By contrast, in current computing systems, training (how the AI is taught) and memory (data storage) happen in two separate places within the computer hardware. Super-Turing AI is revolutionary because it bridges this efficiency gap, so the computer doesn’t have to migrate enormous amounts of data from one part of its hardware to another.
“Traditional AI models rely heavily on backpropagation — a method used to adjust neural networks during training,” Yi said. “While effective, backpropagation is not biologically plausible and is computationally intensive.
“What we did in that paper is troubleshoot the biological implausibility present in prevailing machine learning algorithms,” he said. “Our team explores mechanisms like Hebbian learning and spike-timing-dependent plasticity — processes that help neurons strengthen connections in a way that mimics how real brains learn.”
Hebbian learning principles are often summarized as “cells that fire together, wire together.” This approach aligns more closely with how neurons in the brain strengthen their connections based on activity patterns. By integrating such biologically inspired mechanisms, the team aims to develop AI systems that require less computational power without compromising performance.
In a test, a circuit using these components helped a drone navigate a complex environment — without prior training — learning and adapting on the fly. This approach was faster, more efficient and used less energy than traditional AI.
Why This Matters For The Future Of AI
This research could be a game-changer for the AI industry. Companies are racing to build larger and more powerful AI models, but their ability to scale is limited by hardware and energy constraints. In some cases, new AI applications require building entire new data centers, further increasing environmental and economic costs.
Yi emphasizes that innovation in hardware is just as crucial as advancements in AI systems themselves. “Many people say AI is just a software thing, but without computing hardware, AI cannot exist,” he said.
Looking Ahead: Sustainable AI Development
Super-Turing AI represents a pivotal step toward sustainable AI development. By reimagining AI architectures to mirror the efficiency of the human brain, the industry can address both economic and environmental challenges.
Yi and his team hope that their research will lead to a new generation of AI that is both smarter and more efficient.
“Modern AI like ChatGPT is awesome, but it’s too expensive. We’re going to make sustainable AI,” Yi said. “Super-Turing AI could reshape how AI is built and used, ensuring that as it continues to advance, it does so in a way that benefits both people and the planet.”
There’s no mention of a memristor but there is a ‘synaptic resistor’, which I find puzzling. Is a synaptic resistor something different? In a search with these search terms “synaptic resistor memristor” I found this,
The term “memristive synapses” signifies the amalgamation of memristor functionality with synaptic characteristics, resulting in a novel approach to neuromorphic computing.
I’m guessing memristive synapses can also be called synaptic resistors or, at the least, are related concepts.
It’s time to stop shrinking. Moore’s Law, the semiconductor industry’s obsession with the shrinking of transistors and their commensurate steady doubling on a chip about every two years, has been the source of a 50-year technical and economic revolution. Whether this scaling paradigm lasts for five more years or 15, it will eventually come to an end. The emphasis in electronics design will have to shift to devices that are not just increasingly infinitesimal but increasingly capable.
Earlier this year, I and my colleagues at Hewlett-Packard Labs, in Palo Alto, Calif., surprised the electronics community with a fascinating candidate for such a device: the memristor. It had been theorized nearly 40 years ago, but because no one had managed to build one, it had long since become an esoteric curiosity. That all changed on 1 May [2008], when my group published the details of the memristor in Nature.
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For anyone interested in a trip down memory road, I have a few comments from the theorist (Leon Chua) mentioned in his 2008 article in this April 13, 2010 posting (scroll down to the ‘More on memristors’ subhead).
Brief digression: For anyone unfamiliar with memristors, they are, for want of better terms, devices or elements that have memory in addition to their resistive properties. (For more see: R Jagan Mohan Rao’s undated article ‘What is a Memristor? Principle, Advantages, Applications” on InsstrumentalTools.com)
A March 27,2025 news item on ScienceDaily announces a memristor-enhanced brain-computer interface (BCI),
Summary: Researchers have conducted groundbreaking research on memristor-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). This research presents an innovative approach for implementing energy-efficient adaptive neuromorphic decoders in BCIs that can effectively co-evolve [emphasis mine] with changing brain signals.
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So, the decoder in the BCI will ‘co-evolve’ with your brain? hmmm Also, where is this ‘memristor chip’? The video demo (https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-3966063/v1/7a84dc7037b11bad96ae0378.mp4) shows a volunteer wearing cap attached by cable to an intermediary device (an enlarged chip with a brain on it?) which is in turn attached to a screen. I believe some artistic licence has been taken with regard to the brain on the chip..
Caption: Researchers propose an adaptive neuromorphic decoder supporting brain-machine co-evolution. Credit: The University of Hong Kong
Professor Ngai Wong and Dr Zhengwu Liu from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), in collaboration with research teams at Tsinghua University and Tianjin University, have conducted groundbreaking research on memristor-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Published in Nature Electronics, this research presents an innovative approach for implementing energy-efficient adaptive neuromorphic decoders in BCIs that can effectively co-evolve with changing brain signals.
A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a computer-based system that creates a direct communication pathway between the brain and external devices, such as computers, allowing individuals to control these devices or applications purely through brain activity, bypassing the need for traditional muscle movements or the nervous system. This technology holds immense potential across a wide range of fields, from assistive technologies to neurological rehabilitation. However, traditional BCIs still face challenges.
“The brain is a complex dynamic system with signals that constantly evolve and fluctuate. This poses significant challenges for BCIs to maintain stable performance over time,” said Professor Wong and Dr Liu. “Additionally, as brain-machine links grow in complexity, traditional computing architectures struggle with real-time processing demands.”
The collaborative research addressed these challenges by developing a 128K-cell memristor chip that serves as an adaptive brain signal decoder. The team introduced a hardware-efficient one-step memristor decoding strategy that significantly reduces computational complexity while maintaining high accuracy. Dr Liu, a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at HKU, contributed as a co-first author to this groundbreaking work.
In real-world testing, the system demonstrated impressive capabilities in a four-degree-of-freedom drone flight control task, achieving 85.17% decoding accuracy—equivalent to software-based methods—while consuming 1,643 times less energy and offering 216 times higher normalised speed than conventional CPU-based systems.
Most significantly, the researchers developed an interactive update framework that enables the memristor decoder and brain signals to adapt to each other naturally. This co-evolution, demonstrated in experiments involving ten participants over six-hour sessions, resulted in approximately 20% higher accuracy compared to systems without co-evolution capability.
“Our work on optimising the computational models and error mitigation techniques was crucial to ensure that the theoretical advantages of memristor technology could be realised in practical BCI applications,” explained Dr Liu. “The one-step decoding approach we developed together significantly reduces both computational complexity and hardware costs, making the technology more accessible for a wide range of practical scenarios.”
Professor Wong further emphasised, “More importantly, our interactive updating framework enables co-evolution between the memristor decoder and brain signals, addressing the long-term stability issues faced by traditional BCIs. This co-evolution mechanism allows the system to adapt to natural changes in brain signals over time, greatly enhancing decoding stability and accuracy during prolonged use.”
Building on the success of this research, the team is now expanding their work through a new collaboration with HKU Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine and Queen Mary Hospital to develop a multimodal large language model for epilepsy data analysis.
“This new collaboration aims to extend our work on brain signal processing to the critical area of epilepsy diagnosis and treatment,” said Professor Wong and Dr Liu. “By combining our expertise in advanced algorithms and neuromorphic computing with clinical data and expertise, we hope to develop more accurate and efficient models to assist epilepsy patients.”
The research represents a significant step forward in human-centred hybrid intelligence, which combines biological brains with neuromorphic computing systems, opening new possibilities for medical applications, rehabilitation technologies, and human-machine interaction.
The project received support from the RGC Theme-based Research Scheme (TRS) project T45-701/22-R, the STI 2030-Major Projects, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the XPLORER Prize.
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
A memristor-based adaptive neuromorphic decoder for brain–computer interfaces by Zhengwu Liu, Jie Mei, Jianshi Tang, Minpeng Xu, Bin Gao, Kun Wang, Sanchuang Ding, Qi Liu, Qi Qin, Weize Chen, Yue Xi, Yijun Li, Peng Yao, Han Zhao, Ngai Wong, He Qian, Bo Hong, Tzyy-Ping Jung, Dong Ming & Huaqiang Wu. Nature Electronics volume 8, pages 362–372 (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-025-01340-2 Published online: 17 February 2025 Issue Date: April 2025
This paper is behind a paywall.
Words from the press release like “… human-centred hybrid intelligence, which combines biological brains with neuromorphic computing systems …” put me in mind of cyborgs.
A March 6, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily announces a durable electronic textile that can be washed,
A team of researchers from Nottingham Trent University (UK), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy) has created washable and durable magnetic field sensing electronic textiles — thought to be the first of their kind — which they say paves the way to transform use in clothing, as they report in the journal Communications Engineering. This technology will allow users to interact with everyday textiles or specialized clothing by simply pointing their finger above a sensor.
The researchers show how they placed tiny flexible and highly responsive magnetoresistive sensors within braided textile yarns compatible with conventional textile manufacturing. The garment can be operated by the user across a variety of functions through the use of a ring or glove which would require a miniature magnet. The sensors are seamlessly integrated within the textile, allowing the position of the sensors to be indicated using dyeing or embroidering, acting as touchless controls or ‘buttons’.
The technology, which could even be in the form of a textile-based keyboard, can be integrated into clothing and other textiles and can work underwater and across different weather conditions. Importantly, the researchers argue, it is not prone to accidental activation unlike some capacitive sensors in textiles and textile-based switches. “By integrating the technology into everyday clothing people would be able to interact with computers, smart phones, watches and other smart devices, transforming their clothes into a wearable human-computer interface”, summarizes Dr. Denys Makarov from the Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research at HZDR.
Washable fashion for human-computer interaction
The technology could be applied to areas such as temperature or safety controls for specialized clothing, gaming, or interactive fashion – such as allowing its users to employ simple gestures to control LEDs or other illuminating devices embedded in the textiles. Furthermore, the research team demonstrates the technology on a variety of uses, including a functional armband allowing navigational control in a virtual reality environment, and a self-monitoring safety strap for a motorcycle helmet. “It is the first time that washable magnetic sensors have been unobtrusively integrated within textiles to be used for human-computer interactions”, emphasizes Prof. Niko Münzenrieder from Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
“Our design could revolutionize electronic textiles for both specialized and everyday clothing,” said lead researcher Dr. Pasindu Lugoda, who is based in Nottingham Trent University’s Department of Engineering. He further remarks: “Tactile sensors on textiles vary in usefulness as accidental activation occurs when they rub or brush against surfaces. Touchless interaction reduces wear and tear. Importantly, our technology is designed for everyday use. It is machine washable and durable and does not impact the drape, or overall aesthetic appeal of the textile.”
Electronic textiles are becoming increasingly popular with wide-ranging uses, but the fusion of electronic functionality and textile fabrics can be very challenging. Such textiles have evolved and now rely on soft and flexible materials which are robust enough to endure washing and bending, but which are intuitive and reliable.
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Here’s a link to and and a citation for the paper,
I always appreciate a good acronym and this one is pretty good. (From my perspective, a good acronym is memorable and doesn’t involve tortured terminology such as CRISPR-Cas9, which stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-CRISPR-associated protein 9).
On to ‘SWEET’ and a January 2, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily announcing a new UK study on wearable e-textiles,
A research team led by the University of Southampton and UWE Bristol [University of the West of England Bristol] has shown wearable electronic textiles (e-textiles) can be both sustainable and biodegradable.
A new study, which also involved the universities of Exeter, Cambridge, Leeds and Bath, describes and tests a new sustainable approach for fully inkjet-printed, eco-friendly e-textiles named ‘Smart, Wearable, and Eco-friendly Electronic Textiles’, or ‘SWEET’.
E-textiles are those with embedded electrical components, such as sensors, batteries or lights. They might be used in fashion, for performance sportwear, or for medical purposes as garments that monitor people’s vital signs.
Such textiles need to be durable, safe to wear and comfortable, but also, in an industry which is increasingly concerned with clothing waste, they need to be kind to the environment when no longer required.
Professor Nazmul Karim at the University of Southampton’s Winchester School of Art, who led the study, explains: “Integrating electrical components into conventional textiles complicates the recycling of the material because it often contains metals, such as silver, that don’t easily biodegrade. Our potential ecofriendly approach for selecting sustainable materials and manufacturing overcomes this, enabling the fabric to decompose when it is disposed of.”
The team’s design has three layers, a sensing layer, a layer to interface with the sensors and a base fabric. It uses a textile called Tencel for the base, which is made from renewable wood and is biodegradable. The active electronics in the design are made from graphene, along with a polymer called PEDOT: PSS. These conductive materials are precision inkjet-printed onto the fabric.
The researchers tested samples of the material for continuous monitoring of human physiology using five volunteers. Swatches of the fabric, connected to monitoring equipment, were attached to gloves worn by the participants. Results confirmed the material can effectively and reliably measure both heart rate and temperature at the industry standard level.
Dr Shaila Afroj, an Associate Professor of Sustainable Materials from the University of Exeter and a co-author of the study, highlighted the importance of this performance: “Achieving reliable, industry-standard monitoring with eco-friendly materials is a significant milestone. It demonstrates that sustainability doesn’t have to come at the cost of functionality, especially in critical applications like healthcare.”
The project team then buried the e-textiles in soil to measure its biodegradable properties. After four months, the fabric had lost 48 percent of its weight and 98 percent of its strength, suggesting relatively rapid and also effective decomposition. Furthermore, a life cycle assessment revealed the graphene-based electrodes had up to 40 times less impact on the environment than standard electrodes.
Marzia Dulal from UWE Bristol, a Commonwealth PhD Scholar and the first author of the study, highlighted the environmental impact: “Our life cycle analysis shows that graphene-based e-textiles have a fraction of the environmental footprint compared to traditional electronics. This makes them a more responsible choice for industries looking to reduce their ecological impact.”
The ink-jet printing process is also a more sustainable approach for e-textile fabrications, depositing exact numbers of functional materials on textiles as needed, with almost no material waste and less use of water and energy than conventional screen printing.
Professor Karim concludes: “ Amid rising pollution from landfill sites, our study helps to address a lack of research in the area of biodegradation of e-textiles. These materials will become increasingly more important in our lives, particularly in the area of healthcare, so it’s really important we consider how to make them more eco-friendly, both in their manufacturing and disposal.”
The researchers hope they can now move forward with designing wearable garments made from SWEET for potential use in the healthcare sector, particularly in the area of early detection and prevention of heart-related diseases that 640 million people (source: BHF [British Heart Foundation]) suffer from worldwide.
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Sustainable, Wearable, and Eco-Friendly Electronic Textiles by Marzia Dulal, Harsh Rajesh Mansukhlal Modha, Jingqi Liu, Md Rashedul Islam, Chris Carr, Tawfique Hasan, Robin Michael Statham Thorn, Shaila Afroj, Nazmul Karim. Energy & Enviornmental Materials DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/eem2.12854 First published: 18 December 2024
