Researchers from Stanford University have invented an electrically conductive gel, quick and easy to make, which can be applied onto a surface with an inkjet printer.
The two Stanford associate professors Zhenan Bao and Yi Cui with team created the material of this electrically conductive gel, a jelly that feels and behaves like biological tissue but conducts electricity like a metal or semiconductor.
The gel can be easily manipulated, can be printed or sprayed as a liquid and turned into a gel only after it is already in place.
Proving difficult to manufacture until now this electrically conductive gel give a promise for biological sensor and futuristic energy storage devices development.
As Cui says, the gel’s conductance is “among the best you can get through this kind of process,” its capacity to hold charge is very high and its response to applied charge is unusually fast.
The researches envision is “to use this gel in everything from medical probes and laboratory biological sensors to biofuel cells and high-energy density capacitors.”
