Smart bandage uses LEDs and UV light to prevent infections

The bandage could help improve the quality of life of people who live with chronic non-healing wounds, which currently frequently require painful cleaning and treatment. Non-healing wounds can be a side effect of certain medications or health factors like diabetes, cancer or damaged blood vessels.

A team of researchers from the UK and France developed the first-of-its-kind bandage, which is embedded with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to bathe wounds in sterilising ultraviolet light, preventing the growth of bacteria without the use of drugs like antibiotics.

UV light is already widely used to sterilise objects like surgical equipment and fresh food. Treating bacterial infections in non-healing wounds with UV light instead of drugs could help to slow the rise of new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

In a new paper published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, the researchers outlined how they built the smart bandage and demonstrated its antibacterial effectiveness.

They built a slim, flexible inductive coil which could be integrated into the fabric of the bandage. The coil uses magnetic-resonant wireless power transfer to provide power to the UV LEDs without the need for batteries.