Researchers have developed a self-powered bandage that generates an electric field over an injury, dramatically reducing the healing time for skin wounds.
Wounds covered by electric bandage, or e-bandage, closed within three days, compared with 12 days for a control bandage with no electric field, showed the findings published in the journal ACS Nano.
As early as the 1960s, researchers observed that electrical stimulation could help skin wounds heal, but its application has remained limited as the equipment for generating the electric field becomes often large and may require patient hospitalisation.
Researchers Weibo Cai and Xudong Wang from University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US and their colleagues wanted to develop a flexible, self-powered bandage that could convert skin movements into a therapeutic electric field.