Self-powered coiled carbon nanotube yarn sensor for gastric electronics

The strong peristaltic contraction of the stomach facilitates mixing and emptying of ingested food, which occurs rhythmically at about 3 cycles per minute (cpm) in humans. Generally, most patients with gastroparesis show gastric electrical dysrhythmia that is a disrupted electrical signals controlling gastric contractions. For treatment of gastric electrical dysrhythmia, in vivo electrical impulses to the stomach via implanted gastric stimulator have known to restore these gastric deformations. Nevertheless, improved sensors to monitor gastric contractions are still needed in current gastric stimulators. Recently, we have developed a new technology converting mechanical motion to electrical energy by using stretch-induced capacitance changes of a coiled carbon nanotube (CNT) yarn. For its potential use as a gastric deformation sensor, the performance of a coiled CNT yarn was evaluated in several biological fluids. For sinusoidal stretch to 30%, the peak-to-peak open-circuit voltage (OCV) was consistently ...