Piezoelectric biomaterials received great attention from researchers not only for their inherent biological characteristics, such as biocompatibility, non-toxic and environmental friendliness, but also for their unique piezoelectric properties. Compared with the traditional inorganic piezoelectric materials, piezoelectric biomaterials have more potential applications in biomedicine and flexible wearable electronic devices. But until now, there have been few reviews on the research progress of bio-piezoelectric materials.

Recently, Professor Yang Rusen, Dr. Yuan Hui, Professor Qin Yong, Professor Jr Hau He and Professor Lei Tianmin of School of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology jointly publishedDesign and Application of Piezoelectric Biomaterials onJournal of Physics D: Applied Physics. This paper discussed the design and application of piezoelectric biomaterials, as well as the problems and solutions of piezoelectric biomaterials research.

At first, the paper summarized synthesis methods, crystal structure, morphology and piezoelectric properties of viruses, peptide and other piezoelectric biomaterials. Then, it introduced applications and research progress of piezoelectric biomaterials in the fields of nanogenerators, energy storage devices, sensors and tissue engineering. In the end, the paper deliberated weaknesses of piezoelectric biomaterials including the weak piezoelectric effect and difficult control of the directional growth of piezoelectric biomaterials, and provided a clear research direction. At the same time, the potential applications of piezoelectric effect and inverse piezoelectric effect in promoting cell nucleation, bone growth and wound healing are also pointed out.

Link to the paper:

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6463/ab0532/meta