Batteries made from power supply paper for electronics on clothing and packaging

Imagine how much you care and care when opening a gift box wrapped in a beautiful wrapping paper. That's because paper characters like 'Happy Birthday' or 'Happy Holidays' are lit up by a battery made from paper. New application of cellulose-based batteries, described in ACS 'Nano Letters.

In his report, Albert Mihranyan and colleagues note that scientists are now exploring the development of cheap, lightweight, environmentally-friendly batteries from non-metallic materials. The most anticipated material is a semiconductor polymer known as 'plastic electronics'. Polypyrrole (PPy), a semiconductor polymer, has good prospects, but it is thought that using this material to produce commercial batteries is ineffective. However, the researchers realized that PPy coating on a wide surface and adjusting the thickness of this PPy layer, both power and charging rates improved significantly.

The secret of this battery's behavior lies in the uniform and continuous nano coating on the surface of the cellulose fibers. This coating is extremely thin, only 1/50 of the thickness of the hair. The cellulose fibers are then punched into the paper with extremely large porosity. It is a special cellulose extracted from a green algae. This cellulose-coated surface is key to enabling this new device to generate electricity and generate electricity efficiently.

The breakthrough design of this battery is simply incredible, and looks just as elegant. Both electrodes contain the same pieces of paper, separated by a piece of filter paper usually soaked in Nacl solution. Here Nacl serves as an electrolyte. The difference if there are only differences in the form of oxidation and reduction of the PPy class function. This battery has a shorter charging time than conventional rechargeable batteries and is suitable for applications requiring flexibility such as clothing and packaging. As a substitute, large, cheap energy storage devices with a few yard electrodes can be built in the future.

Researchers say paper-based batteries can provide power to electronic devices in the future. Above is the image of a test paper made of paper. (Photo: American Chemical Society)