Communications of the ACM
Engineers Produce 140m Flexible Rechargeable Battery
The thermally-drawn fiber battery is fire-resistant due to gel electrodes and its gel electrolyte.
Credit: MIT
Researchers have developed a rechargeable lithium-ion battery in the form of an ultra-long fiber that could be woven into fabrics. The battery could enable a wide variety of wearable electronic devices, and might even be used to make 3D-printed batteries in virtually any shape.
The researchers envision new possibilities for self-powered communications, sensing, and computational devices that could be worn like ordinary clothing, as well as devices whose batteries could also double as structural parts.
In a proof of concept, the team behind the new battery technology has produced a flexible fiber battery 140 meters long to demonstrate that the material can be manufactured to arbitrarily long lengths. The work is described in "Thermally Drawn Rechargeable Battery Fiber Enables Pervasive Power," published in the journal Materials Today.
The system embeds the lithium and other materials inside the fiber, with a protective outside coating, thus making the version stable and waterproof.
From MIT News
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