California-based start up Imprint Energy has developed a new ultra-thin flexible battery that is cheaply printable and looks to power future wearable technologies, Mashable reports.
These thin zinc-polymer rechargeable batteries have been tested in wrist-worn devices with the intention that the technology will be embedded in various gadgets with on-body applications. It is thought that Imprint Energy's tech will allow product designers to be freed from the limitations of bulky lithium-based batteries. The company is currently working on bringing its batteries to wearables, medical tech, smart labels and environmental sensors.
The batteries were developed from research undertaken by the company's co-founder, Christine Ho, in collaboration with a researcher in Japan. The team produced microscopic zinc batteries using a 3-D printer. These batteries can be printed via commonly used industrial screen printers. This is in contrast to Lithium batteries with their highly reactive components, which have to be more protected/insulated, adding size and bulk.
This flexible battery developed by Ho uses zinc and a polymer electrolyte, making it a stable and wearables-safe with a good capacity for recharging. Zinc's environmental stability also meant that there was no need to produce mass increasing extra layers to protect it.
Imprint Energy has secured $6m of funding from Phoenix Venture Partners and AME Cloud Ventures, helping the team to further develop its proprietary chemistry and finance the battery's commercial launch. The company has been in talks about the use of its batteries in clothing and even "weird parts of your body like your eye," says Ho. Furthermore Imprint Energy recently began working on a U.S. military-funded project to produce batteries for soldier health monitoring sensors.
