Herbal Thermotherapy Patch – ScienceDaily

The researchers used leaves from a Bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa). The veins of the leaves have a fractal pattern that makes the surface highly flexible and shearable. Silver nanowires were tied to the leaf skeleton and the surface was encapsulated in a biodegradable transparent tape.

The fractal-based design can also be used in flexible electronic applications as it overcomes the limitations of traditional planar designs by maximizing surface area on a microscale, or more precisely, maximizing the surface area to volume ratio by simply scaling it. The large surface area enables effective heat transfer, fast response time and overheating. Due to the flexible structure and the even heating of the plaster, it can also be attached to movable joints.

In orthopedics, medical thermal therapy pillows are widely used to relieve pain, improve blood circulation, and decrease ammation. They are also used to treat arthritis, stiff joints, spondylosis of the cervix, and physical injuries.

Traditional thermotherapy pads are known to cause burns. One reason for this is that some people have skin that is not very sensitive to heat. Part of the problem is that commercial heating pads are opaque and users cannot see how their skin is responding to therapy.

Since the thermal therapy patch is made entirely from plant-based materials, it can help reduce the carbon footprint and electronic waste. All materials used in the manufacturing process are environmentally friendly, economical, easily accessible and easy to manufacture.

“Electronic scrap is a growing environmental problem worldwide. Using biotic architectures and materials can help develop flexible next-generation electronic devices while solving e-waste problems, ”says Vipul Sharma, a postdoctoral fellow at the Finnish Academy.

Sharma works in the Bioinspired Materials and Robotics group which is part of the BioMediTech Institute of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology at Tampere University. The group is led by Academy Research Fellow Veikko Sariola.

Electronics, particularly flexible electronics, are increasingly being integrated into medical devices, textiles, wellness trackers, and other portable devices, among other things.

The concept can also be used in various applications, e.g. B. defogging / defrosting, portable devices, industrial heating systems, sensors, thermochromic displays and microfluidic chips.

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Materials provided by University of Tampere. Note: the content can be edited by style and length.