biodegradable tagged posts

Femtosecond micro-supercapacitors on a single leaf could easily be applied to wearable electronics, smart houses, and IoTs. A KAIST research team has developed a graphene-inorganic-hybrid micro-supercapacitor made of leaves using femtosecond direct laser writing lithography. The advancement of wearable electronic devices is synonymous with innovations in flexible energy storage devices. Of the various energy storage devices, micro-supercapacitors have drawn a great deal of interest for their high electrical power density, long lifetimes, and short charging times.

However, there has been an increase in waste battery generation with the increases in the consumption and use of electronic equipme...

This is associate professor Larry (Yuerui) Lu (left) and PhD researcher Ankur Sharma from the ANU Research School of Engineering.
Credit: Jack Fox, ANU

Engineers at The Australian National University (ANU) have invented a semiconductor with organic and inorganic materials that can convert electricity into light very efficiently, and it is thin and flexible enough to help make devices such as mobile phones bendable.

The invention also opens the door to a new generation of high-performance electronic devices made with organic materials that will be biodegradable or that can be easily recycled, promising to help substantially reduce e-waste.

The huge volumes of e-waste generated by discarded electronic devices around the world is causing irreversible damage to the environment...

A new, flexible adhesive material inspired by the glue secreted by slugs adheres to biological tissues (even when wet) without causing toxicity, and can be formed into either sheets (teal blue) or custom shapes (dark blue). Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Slug-inspired, flexible medical bio-glue sticks to wet surfaces without toxicity. A super-strong ‘tough adhesive’ has been created that is non-toxic and binds to biological tissues with a strength comparable to the body’s own resilient cartilage, even when they’re wet. Inspired by the glue produced by a slug, the double-layered hydrogel material demonstrates both high adhesion strength and strain dissipation, making it useful in a variety of medical applications.

When first author Jianyu Li, Ph.D...

Illustration of the degradable system carrying treatment for hemophilia B. Credit: Cockrell School of Engineering

In the near future, hemophiliacs could be able to treat their disease by simply swallowing a capsule. Thanks to a breakthrough led by researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, treatment for hemophilia can now be administered via a biodegradable system, a capsule, giving people affected by the hereditary bleeding disorder hope for a less expensive, less painful treatment option than conventional injections or infusions.

They designed the oral delivery system, which contains micro- and nanoparticles, to carry a protein therapy that treats hemophilia B. There are ~400,000 people worldwide with hemophilia A or B...