A way to make piles almost any shape desired

<a rel = "lightbox" href = "https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/2018/5beececb7a979.jpg" title = "Manufacture of Zn-PANI cells in arbitrary geometries (a) Optical image of box structures and lids printed in different shapes and sizes of packaging (b) Diagrams illustrating the integrated badembly process of a representative Zn-PANI battery in H. (c) Optical images of badembled Zn-PANI batteries d) Optical image of the spherical Zn-PANI battery indicating the voltage of the cell (e) Optical image of an LED powered by two connected H-shaped Zn-PANI batteries in series (f) Flow capacity and (g) cycle performance of a cylindrical Zn-PANI battery measured in a voltage window from 0.7 to 1.7 V at different rates of C. Credit: ACS Nano (2018) DOI: 10.1021 /acsnano.8b02744 ">

A team of researchers from Korea's Higher Institute of Science and Technology, Harvard University and the Korea Institute for Chemical Technology Research has come up with a way to manufacture batteries in almost every conceivable form. In their article published in the journal ACS Nano researchers describe the battery manufacturing process and the device they created to prove the sound concept.

The limits of the shape of the battery limit the shape of many small devices – smart watches, for example. Small batteries are usually coin-shaped, rectangular, cylindrical or sachet-shaped. As part of this new effort, researchers have come up with a new way of making a battery that could fit any shape that a product manufacturer could design.

Researchers say they chose zinc-ion batteries because they can be used safely outdoors – that's because they use water-based electrolytes. They examined the manufacturing methods used for various products, looking for techniques to manufacture battery components of different shapes. For the cathode, they found that the electrospinning allowed to cut the batteries to the desired shape. For other parts, they used micro-machining. For packaging, they used stereolithography. The electrical connections were made using a 3D printer. They gathered all their ideas and made piles in the shape of letters, rings and circles.

To test their ideas, the researchers created a battery that could power a light sensor attached to a ring worn on the finger. . By successfully demonstrating such a device, the team showed that his ideas were valid. They note that the same process could be used to create other innovative devices, and that other options are also available, such as the use of zinc-manganese batteries to power a graphene supercapacitor.

The researchers also noted that the designer batteries they had created could unload very quickly – and can be fully charged in just a few minutes. They suggest that their batteries could be used in applications such as implantable or portable devices and other new products.

Explore Further:
Lithium-ion batteries printed in 3D

More information:
Chanhoon Kim et al. High power zinc-ion aqueous batteries for custom electronic devices, ACS Nano (2018). DOI: 10.1021 / acsnano.8b02744