Sourcing the electric in eels

Engineers aim to replicate eels’ electric cells and improve on them.

US engineers at Yale University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) want to replicate the electrical behaviour of electric eel cells and improve on their energy capabilities.

According to the engineers, artificial versions of the eel’s electricity generating cells could be developed as a power source for medical implants and other tiny devices.

The dedicated electric cells in eels, called electrocytes, generate electric potentials of up to 600 volts and work similarly to nerve cells.

But NIST engineer David LaVan asks: “Do we understand how a cell produces electricity well enough to design one—and to optimise that design?”

LaVan recognises several channels in all to replicate, each with several possible variables to tweak, such as their density in the membrane.

The Yale and NIST partnership then developed a complex numerical method to represent the conversion into electrical impulses.

Possible examples based on their calculations show that they can improve on the natural system. One design for an artificial cell can generate 40 per cent more energy than a natural electrocyte. Another could produce peak power outputs more than 28 per cent higher.

In principle, say the engineers, stacked layers of artificial cells in a cube slightly over 4 mm on a side are capable of producing continuous power output of about 300 microwatts to drive small implant devices.

Implanting power

Meet a Role Model involved with medical devices and implants for an orthopaedic company.

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