Future of Engineering

Professor George Gruner and a group of scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles have recently fabricated a flexible Carbon Nanotube (CNT) based battery architecture from “nanotube ink”, using cheap and highly scalable materials. Possible applications include powering disposable electronic devices like long-range RFID tags or small displays. The scientists are hoping that the batteries will be able to generate more power in the future, so that they will be able to power a wider range of devices. Currently, industrial-scale printing processes can deposit electronics onto a variety of flexible substrates cheaply and speedily. The printed electronics require cheap printed power sources. For this reason, the new CNT batteries may potentially be an important advancement in battery technology.

The new batteries are deposited layer-by-layer in an all solution-phase approach amenable to large-scale production, similarly to roll-to-roll printing

Besides the clear benefits of the solution-phase room-temperature process, there are even better news for future devices

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Labels: Energy-Environment-Engineering, Material-Sciences