IIT-Kharagpur develops wearable technology from silk which can be used by soldiers
Scientists have inched closer to indigenously built wearable electronic devices, thanks to unique properties of silk. A team of experts at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, has fashioned a hybrid material based on silk protein called silk fibroin. This novel material has the potential to spawn prototype textile-based smart electronic devices for soldiers and defence personnel as well as for biomedical applications.
Samit K. Ray, currently officiating as the Director of S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata (on lien), told IANS,
We have designed a hybrid photo detector using zinc oxide nanostructures on gold nanoparticle-embedded silk protein for applications that combine electronics and light.
A photodetector operates by converting light signals to a voltage or current.
The hybrid material can store data and can detect light, both in the ultraviolet and visible wavelength range, thereby offering greater sensitivity and scope of detection, Ray said.
The USP of the hybrid material is its flexibility, stretchability, biocompatibility, and biodegradability, said a Millennium Post. "These properties are due to a combination of silk fibroin and semiconducting zinc oxide in presence of gold nanoparticles," Ray noted. Bombyx mori silkworms are the main producers of silk fibroins worldwide in the form of cocoons.
These fibroins are attractive due to their high mechanical strength, toughness, thermal stability, and biocompatibility/ biodegradability," elaborated Ray. Although 95 percent of commercial electronics and computing systems deploy silicon as the semiconductor material, the team opted for zinc oxide instead, Ray said.
Zinc oxide nanorod array embedded in silk platform is flexible and can withstand mechanical stress and bending. "Moreover, the zinc oxide, under mechanical stress, generates electrical energy. This means these devices can be powered by the energy generated when a soldier is moving about," Ray said. This was important for crafting self-powered, flexible photodetector (light detector) devices, according to Ray. "In remote locations where power sources are scarce, the wearable technology can power up by the mere movement of the user," added Ray. Narendar Gogurla and Subhas C. Kundu are the co-authors of the study published in the journal Nanotechnology.
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