CeNS researchers switch on piezoelectricity in peptides for self-powered medical implants

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Researchers have found a way to switch on strong piezoelectric behaviour in peptide-based materials without altering the peptide itself.
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Adding just one per cent of a suitable co-solvent reorganises the molecules into an ordered arrangement that generates a piezoelectric response.
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The work points towards implantable devices powered by body movements such as heartbeat, breathing or walking.

●Piezoelectric materials convert mechanical force — pressing, bending or stretching — into electrical energy, and are used in pressure sensors, medical ultrasound and energy-harvesting systems.
●Most commercial piezoelectric materials are ceramics: effective, but brittle, environmentally unfriendly and generally unsuitable for use inside the body.
●Peptides, the natural building blocks of proteins, are biodegradable and biocompatible, which is why they are the target for biomaterials of this kind.
●The breakthrough lies in controlling how peptide molecules assemble, not in changing the peptide: in water they form nanofibers with no piezoelectric response.
●Adding about 1% of a suitable co-solvent reorganises them into an ordered supramolecular arrangement and switches on a strong response.
●Work done at the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), Bengaluru — an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology — with IISER Kolkata and JNCASR, Bengaluru.
●Characterisation used atomic force microscopy (AFM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM).

upsc

GS Paper 3 > Science and Technology > New Materials

★What is the piezoelectric effect, and why are ceramics unsuitable for implantable devices?

Piezoelectric effect

The generation of an electric charge in certain materials when mechanical stress is applied to them.

Biocompatible

Able to remain in contact with living tissue without provoking a harmful reaction — the property ceramics lack for implants.

•Piezoelectricity converts mechanical stress into electrical energy.
•CeNS, Bengaluru is an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology.
•The switch came from a 1% co-solvent changing molecular assembly, not from changing the peptide.

•Piezoelectric is force-to-electricity. Do not confuse it with pyroelectric (heat) or thermoelectric (temperature difference).

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