Stretchable, Printable Lithium-Ion Battery Can Power Your Wearables Straight From Your Clothes
Designed to power wearable devices, this printable battery can take on almost any shape and size.
A team of researchers at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) have developed printable, stretchable, free-form lithium-ion batteries — ideal, they say, for use in wearables and even printable directly onto clothing.
Led by Jeong Gon Son, PhD, the team's work showcases the production of a fully-functional lithium-ion battery in which all the key components — anode, cathode, current collector, electrolyte, and casing — are flexible, stretchable, and printable directly onto materials including cloth.
Based on a novel organic gel, the printable battery uses a conductive ink as a current collector while integrating existing lithium-ion battery materials with, its creators claim, a similar storage density to that of commercial hard-style ltihium-ion batteries — but offers a stretchability of 50 percent or higher.
To prove the concept, the team removed the battery from an off-the-shelf smartwatch and connected it to a battery assembled directly onto a wearable sleeve — printed, for bonus points, the shape of the KIST logo. The watch remained powered by the battery even as the sleeve's spandex material was being stretched, with no interruption while the garment was being donned or doffed.
The battery's flexibility is only part of its appeal, too: Its creators found that the design remained stable during 1,000 charge-discharge cycles, did not suffer from exposure to air, and could run at high voltages and in various crumpled shapes without swelling.
The team's work has been published in the journal ACS Nano under closed-access terms. No path to commercialization was discussed.