Scientists have succeeded in winding ultra-thin components into roll structures, designed on the same principle as the Swiss roll. Upon arrival, the battery is as small as a speck of dust!
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Although the laws of physical limit the miniaturization of elements, scientists at the Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany claim to have created the smallest battery in the world ! To push the limits of the tinyits engineers explain that they had the idea of relying on a system inspired by the Swiss roll, or called “micro-origami”.
In English, we speak of Swiss Roll (Swiss rolled), and instead of rolling up layers of sponge cake and jam or spread, they layered current collectors and strips ofelectrodes in materials polymersmetallic and dielectrics on a surface of brochure tense. By peeling off these individual layers, the tension is released and the materials fold over, rolling around each other to adopt the same design as a Swiss roll cake to create a “micro-battery self-wound cylinder”.
About the size of a speck of dust!
In fact, this component does not exceed one square millimeter in diameter and it approaches the size of a grain of dustwith a density ofenergy minimum of 100 microwatt hours (μWh) per square centimeter. Given its very small size and its autonomy estimated at 10 hours, this battery is particularly suitable for sensors capable of being implanted in the human body.
Researchers give the example of monitoring oxygen levels in fabrics deep or monitoring vital organs after an operation, and they explain in their study, published in Advanced Energy Materialsthat this type of microbattery would be perfect as a backup power source in the event of an interruption in energy harvesting.
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