E-Bandage Generates Electricity, Speeds Wound Healing
Chronic skin wounds include diabetic foot ulcers, venous ulcers and non-healing surgical wounds. Doctors have tried various approaches to help chronic wounds heal, including bandaging, dressing, exposure to oxygen and growth-factor therapy, but they often show limited effectiveness. As early as the 1960s, researchers observed that electrical stimulation could help skin wounds heal. However, the equipment for generating the electric field is often large and may require patient hospitalization. Weibo Cai, Xudong Wang and colleagues wanted to develop a flexible, self-powered bandage that could convert skin movements into a therapeutic electric field.
A wound covered by an electric bandage on a rat’s skin (top left) healed faster than a wound under a control bandage (right).
To power their electric bandage, or e-bandage, the researchers made a wearable nanogenerator by overlapping sheets of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), copper foil and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The nanogenerator converted skin movements, which occur during normal activity or even breathing, into small electrical pulses. This current flowed to two working electrodes that were placed on either side of the skin wound to produce a weak electric field. The team tested the device by placing it over wounds on rats’ backs.
The authors acknowledge funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health.
Contacts and sources:
American Chemical Society
Citation:“Effective Wound Healing Enabled by Discrete Alternative Electric Fields from Wearable Nanogenerators” Yin Long, Hao Wei, Jun Li, Guang Yao, Bo Yu, Dalong Ni, Angela LF Gibson, Xiaoli Lan, Yadong Jiang, Weibo Cai, Xudong Wang. ACS Nano, 2018; DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.8b07038
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