A team of engineers from the University of California, San Diego has developed remarkable stretchable power cells that take energy from your own sweat and power electronics, like LEDs and even Bluetooth radios!
For a field that has been struggling to come up with devices that are powerful enough and stretchable enough, these epidermal biofuel cells are a major breakthrough. The breakthrough was achieved thanks to a combination of extremely clever chemistry, highly advanced materials and electronic interfaces. This combination let them build a highly stretchable, electronic foundation using lithography and screen-printing to manufacture 3D carbon nanotube-based cathode and anode arrays.
The biofuel cells are equipped with an enzyme that oxidizes the lactic acid present in human sweat to generate current. This turns the sweat into a source of power. Because the concentration of lactic acid in a person's sweat gets diluted over time, the team is exploring a way to store the energy produced while the concentration of lactate is high enough and then release it gradually.So future work is needed before this technology can be considered a full success.