Batteries for Implantable Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Battery‐powered medical devices have been surgically implanted into the bodies of several million persons during the past one‐third of a century. Implantable devices have been used to treat an increasingly diverse number of conditions including cardiac arrhythmias, chronic pain, epilepsy, hearing loss, obesity, vision loss, and scoliosis. It is estimated that in the year 2004 over 500,000 heart pacemakers were implanted. A lithium primary battery powers the typical cardiac pacemaker. The reliability and the longevity of the pacemaker are determined by its design and manufacturing parameters, as well as therapy‐related variables. As battery failure results in a cessation of pacemaker output, the selection of the appropriate battery is an important step in the product development. A large number of battery designs have been developed to meet the unique requirements of implantable medical devices, ranging from the very‐low‐rate batteries that can power a pacemaker for many years, to the high‐rate batteries required for cardiac defibrillators.

Progress towards high-power Li/CFxbatteries: electrode architectures using carbon nanotubes with CFx

“…Depending on the power level, implantable medical device primary batteries fall into several categories: low-rate batteries outputting microwatts of power such as batteries for cardiac pacemakers and hearing devices; medium-rate batteries outputting milliwatts of power such as batteries for drug delivery systems and bone growth stimulators and high-rate batteries such as batteries for implantable cardiac defibrillators which need to deliver a power pulse of 40 J within milliseconds. 29 Among all of the applications, reliability, predictability, and long shelf-life are essential requirements for implantable biomedical device batteries, where high energy density and lightweight are also important. By virtue of the lightweight and high theoretical capacity of lithium metals, lithium primary batteries have been widely used in health-improving medical devices since the successful implantation of the first lithium-powered pacemaker in the 1970s.…”

Design and implementation of a wireless medical system prototype for implantable applications

“…IMD batteries differ from regular batteries because [7]: (1) they operate in an isothermal environment (constant temperature of 37°C), (2) they need to be replaced prior total battery depletion, requiring surgical intervention, (3) their size and form dominate the IMD's volume and shape, and (4) their current capacity dictates the IMD lifetime. Several options were explored in order to select the battery for the presented IMD, including different lithiumbased options (Li/I 2 , Li/SOCl 2 , LiNiCoAlO 2 ) from providers such as Greatbatch Inc., Quallion LLC, and Eagle Picher Medical Power TM .…”

From Microorganism-Based Amperometric Biosensors towards Microbial Fuel Cells

“…Therefore, the compatibility of conducting polymers with microorganisms play a very important role for the performance and application of these bioelectronics-based devices. Such bioelectronics-based devices find new application areas in biomedicine including that in biomedical implants [ 77 ], which need suitable long-lasting power sources [ 78 ]. In this context, the most suitable power sources for such devices could be enzymatic or catalytic biofuel cells, because they can use unlimited resource of biofuel (e.g., glucose) from our organisms ( Figure 4 ).…”