In order to keep a body healthy, the heart must deliver a sufficient amount of blood to the body. As a pump, the heart is most efficient in delivering blood when functioning within a certain heart rate range. Electrical signals generated by the special tissue located on the right atria wall cause the heart muscles to contract and pump blood in an orderly and efficient manner. However there is more than 75000 sudden deaths as per recent statistics with Egypt and US top ranking the list. To prevent sudden death from cardiac arrest due to abnormally fast heart rhythms an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) is used.
An implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is a small device that is placed in the chest or abdomen producing electrical pulses or shocks to help control life-threatening, irregular heartbeats, especially those that could cause heart to suddenly and unexpectedly stop beating. In these machines lithium/silver vanadium oxide battery is used as the power source and lasts only five to seven years. But the researchers at University at Buffalo are exploring even-better battery systems by fine-tuning bimetallic materials at the atomic level. Their results show that they can make their materials 15,000 times more conductive upon initial battery use due to in-situ generation of metallic silver nanoparticles. Their new approach to material design is reported to allow development of higher-power, longer-life batteries than was previously possible thus saving precious human life.