Heartbeats power a battery-free pacemaker designed to last a lifetime
Madison researchers have developed an implantable, battery-free pacemaker that's charged by a patient's heartbeat. The device has the potential to last an entire lifetime, reducing the risks and costs associated with replacing devices when their batteries fail.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a groundbreaking battery-free pacemaker that harnesses a patient's heartbeat to generate power. This implantable device, designed by postdoctoral scholar Pengfei Chen under the guidance of materials science and engineering professor Xudong Wang, can potentially last a lifetime, eliminating the need for repeated battery replacements.
The device, described in the August 19, 2026 issue of Science Advances, achieves a power output density an order of magnitude higher than previous nanogenerators. While the intracardiac pacemaker eliminates the need for frequent surgeries to replace depleted batteries, its battery consumes nearly half its volume and only lasts seven to ten years.
Researchers are therefore exploring alternative methods to power these devices long term, including tritium batteries, piezoelectric nanogenerators, and triboelectric nanogenerators. Wang and Chen focused on optimizing triboelectric nanogenerators, which produce electricity when two oppositely charged materials come into contact and then separate.
After several iterations, they successfully designed specialized oscillating triboelectric structures that fit within the battery compartment of the common leadless intracardiac pacemaker, the Medtronic MicraTM. In lab tests, the nanogenerator successfully powered cardiac stimulation in a pig, demonstrating its potential as a safe and effective long-term solution for pacemaker technology.
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