Power to the Paper: Researchers Turn Paper into Flexible Lithium-Ion Battery

By Clay Dillow Posted 09.22.2010 at 2:52 pm 10 Comments

A Flexible Paper Li-ion Battery Yi Cui/Stanford U

Batteries are the bane of all portable electronics. Bigger, heavier batteries make devices less portable, while smaller batteries lead to low performance or short battery life – or both. But while Stanford’s new lithium-ion batteries don’t necessarily cut down on footprint, they certainly cut down on mass; the new ultra-thin, rechargeable battery has been fabricated on a single sheet of paper, making it super-light, flexible, and as portable as a piece of A4.

The batteries were fabricated by materials scientists at Stanford by depositing a thin film of carbon nanotubes followed by another thin film of metal-containing lithium compound on top of the nanotube layer. These thin bilayer films are layered onto both sides of a piece of ordinary paper, which serves as both the structural support of the battery as well as the electrode separator. The lithium serves as electrodes, while the nanotube layers are current collectors.

The result is a working battery just 300 micrometers thick – that’s 300 millionths of a meter – that is flexible, super-thin, and more energy dense than other thin-bodied batteries. It’s also durable; over a 300-cycle recharge test, performance remained satisfactory. It’s also fairly easy to fabricate, making it far more commercially viable than other methods of downsizing battery technology.

Such batteries aren’t ideal for every application, but they could be extremely useful in future incarnations of smart packaging, RFID sensing, and electronic paper products.

[Chemical & Engineering News]

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10 Comments

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Septimus Prime

09/22/10 at 3:33 pm

I wonder if you can increase capacity/output by stacking a bunch of these together to create a super-dense battery with the form factor of today's batteries.

Isn't graphene still way better than this, though?

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woowoo678

09/22/10 at 3:33 pm

They better have this in the next Ipod touch, that thing is ridiculous

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woowoo678

09/22/10 at 3:34 pm

Heh, me and Septimus commented at the same time

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alias007

09/22/10 at 3:54 pm

This is outstanding!

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thor0997

09/22/10 at 3:54 pm

I hope they can actually get them on the market. Ive hear of the thing where they print batteries on paper before but thats still quite a few years off...

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I4Future

09/22/10 at 5:34 pm

they should just use this tech in making wallpaper, then put solar panels on your roof,there is your perfect energy storage house

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Clifford Cannon

09/23/10 at 4:56 pm

wallpaper? so you hang a picture and get electrocuted? ;)

on the other hand how about layering this behind the solar cell so the cell is both collector and storage medium, then all you need is the converter to tie it into your home systems

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Big_Hippo

09/29/10 at 5:03 am

It seems that we need to make a cover for such battery....

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