Transient Biobatteries

Transient electronics is an emerging technology with the interesting characteristic to physically disappear on demand. Future research efforts in this realm will continue to revolutionize the fields of temporary biomedical implants, environmental-friendly electronics, data-secure memory devices, and disposable consumer electronics. However, there are significant challenges in developing transient electronics at a system level that contains an integrated, transient power source. The transient power source is essential to creating an all transient system that can work independently and self-sustainably. Despite the vast promise and demand, however, research efforts on transient power sources or energy storage devices were quite limited. Several transient power sources such as lithium-ion batteries and nanogenerators were proposed to degrade into the surrounding environment by the external triggers such as light, temperature, pH, or special liquid. However, they do not sustain stable performance in a controllable manner and still contain a large amount of non-renewable and non-biodegradable heavy metals and polymers. In this work, we report, for the first time, a bacteria-powered biobattery on a dissolvable paper that can be decomposed in a controlled manner after stable operation.