Engineers develop a soft, printable, metal-free electrode
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Some
implants are hard and bulky, while others are flexible and thin. But no matter
their form and function, nearly all implants incorporate electrodes -- small
conductive elements that attach directly to target tissues to electrically
stimulate muscles and nerves.
Implantable
electrodes are predominantly made from rigid metals that are electrically
conductive by nature. But over time, metals can aggravate tissues, causing
scarring and inflammation that in turn can degrade an implant's performance.
Now, MIT engineers have developed a metal-free, jelly-like material that is as soft and tough as biological tissue and can conduct electricity similarly to conventional metals.
The material can be made into a printable ink, which the
researchers patterned into flexible, rubbery electrodes. The new material,
which is a type of high-performance conducting polymer hydrogel, may one day
replace metals as functional, gel-based electrodes, with the look and feel of
biological tissue.
"This material operates the same as metal electrodes but is made from gels that are similar to our bodies, and with similar water content," says Hyunwoo Yuk SM '16 PhD '21, co-founder of SanaHeal, a medical device startup. "It's like an artificial tissue or nerve."
"We
believe that for the first time, we have a tough, robust, Jell-O-like electrode
that can potentially replace metal to stimulate nerves and interface with the
heart, brain, and other organs in the body," adds Xuanhe Zhao, professor
of mechanical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering at MIT.
Zhao, Yuk, and others at MIT and elsewhere report their results
in Nature
Materials. The study's co-authors include first author and former MIT
postdoc Tao Zhou, who is now an assistant professor at Penn State University,
and colleagues at Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University and Shanghai
Jiao Tong University.
A true challenge
The
vast majority of polymers are insulating by nature, meaning that electricity
does not pass easily through them. But there exists a small and special class
of polymers that can in fact pass electrons through their bulk. Some conductive
polymers were first shown to exhibit high electrical conductivity in the 1970s
-- work that was later awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Recently,
researchers including those in Zhao's lab have tried using conductive polymers
to fabricate soft, metal-free electrodes for use in bioelectronic implants and
other medical devices. These efforts have aimed to make soft yet tough,
electrically conductive films and patches, primarily by mixing particles of
conductive polymers, with hydrogel -- a type of soft and spongy water-rich
polymer.
Researchers
hoped the combination of conductive polymer and hydrogel would yield a
flexible, biocompatible, and electrically conductive gel. But the materials
made to date were either too weak and brittle, or they exhibited poor
electrical performance.
"In gel materials, the electrical and mechanical properties
always fight each other," Yuk says. "If you improve a gel's electrical
properties, you have to sacrifice mechanical properties, and vice versa. But in
reality, we need both: A material should be conductive, and also stretchy and
robust. That was the true challenge and the reason why people could not make
conductive polymers into reliable devices entirely made out of gel."
Electric spaghetti
In
their new study, Yuk and his colleagues found they needed a new recipe to mix
conductive polymers with hydrogels in a way that enhanced both the electrical
and mechanical properties of the respective ingredients.
"People
previously relied on homogenous, random mixing of the two materials," Yuk
says.
Such
mixtures produced gels made of randomly dispersed polymer particles. The group
realized that to preserve the electrical and mechanical strengths of the
conductive polymer and the hydrogel respectively, both ingredients should be
mixed in a way that they slightly repel -- a state known as phase separation.
In this slightly separated state, each ingredient could then link its respective
polymers to form long, microscopic strands, while also mixing as a whole.
"Imagine
we are making electrical and mechanical spaghetti," Zhao offers. "The
electrical spaghetti is the conductive polymer, which can now transmit
electricity across the material because it is continuous. And the mechanical
spaghetti is the hydrogel, which can transmit mechanical forces and be tough
and stretchy because it is also continuous."
The
researchers then tweaked the recipe to cook the spaghettified gel into an ink,
which they fed through a 3D printer, and printed onto films of pure hydrogel,
in patterns similar to conventional metal electrodes.
"Because
this gel is 3D-printable, we can customize geometries and shapes, which makes
it easy to fabricate electrical interfaces for all kinds of organs," says
first-author Zhou.
The
researchers then implanted the printed, Jell-O-like electrodes onto the heart,
sciatic nerve, and spinal cord of rats. The team tested the electrodes'
electrical and mechanical performance in the animals for up to two months and
found the devices remained stable throughout, with little inflammation or
scarring to the surrounding tissues. The electrodes also were able to relay
electrical pulses from the heart to an external monitor, as well as deliver small
pulses to the sciatic nerve and spinal cord, which in turn stimulated motor
activity in the associated muscles and limbs.
Going
forward, Yuk envisions that an immediate application for the new material may
be for people recovering from heart surgery.
"These
patients need a few weeks of electrical support to avoid heart attack as a side
effect of surgery," Yuk says. "So, doctors stitch a metallic
electrode on the surface of the heart and stimulate it over weeks. We may
replace those metal electrodes with our gel to minimize complications and side
effects that people currently just accept."
The
team is working to extend the material's lifetime and performance. Then, the
gel could be used as a soft electrical interface between organs and longer-term
implants, including pacemakers and deep-brain stimulators.
"The
goal of our group is to replace glass, ceramic, and metal inside the body, with
something like Jell-O so it's more benign but better performance, and can last
a long time," Zhao says. "That's our hope."
This research is supported, in part, by the National Institutes of Health.
