Composite polymer for flexible batteries. New compounds with electrically conductive carbon

The world of industrial research is frantically at work in order to build new batteries with ever-increasing performance capabilities, studying new polymers and new flexible elements.

The fields of application are the most varied: from sustainable mobility, to clean energy generation plants up to the small appliances we use every day.

The imperative is to be able to concentrate the maximum duration in a battery, the lowest possible level of polluting compounds, the maximum possible power, depending on the size, and finally the practicality of use.

The researchers, in this case, have gone very far, studying and designing a totally flexible battery that can be adapted to new uses, perhaps still unthinkable.

As the magazine Advance Material reports, researchers at the Zurich Polytechnic have developed a very thin battery that can be folded, rolled up, crushed without ever losing the power of transmitting the current.

This novelty can be used in small, commonly used appliances, but also in very thin objects such as work clothes and for leisure. The heart of this product is a flexible composite polymer , also containing carbon and therefore electrically conductive, which makes up the two collectors for the cathode and the anode and the external structure of the battery.

The interior is made up of superimposed silver flakes so that they can be adapted to the flexibility of the elastomer movements with which the battery has been designed, thus ensuring the passage of current even in elastic conditions. Furthermore, lithium-manganese oxide and vanadium oxide powders were placed on the cathode and anode .

As far as the electrolyte is concerned, that element which allows the passage of lithium ions, both during the phase of use of energy and during recharging, was constituted with a gel based on water containing lithium salt which is result less polluting than other elements present in current batteries.

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