Paintable Battery

• Neelam Singh,
• Charudatta Galande,
• Andrea Miranda,
• Akshay Mathkar,
• Wei Gao,
• Arava Leela Mohana Reddy,
• Alexandru Vlad
• & Pulickel M. Ajayan

• Scientific Reports

   

  2,

   

  Article number:

   

  481

   

  doi:10.1038/srep00481

  Received

   

  13 April 2012 

  Accepted

   

  07 June 2012 

  Published

   

  28 June 2012

  

  If the components of a battery, including electrodes, separator, electrolyte and the current collectors can be designed as paints and applied sequentially to build a complete battery, on any arbitrary surface, it would have significant impact on the design, implementation and integration of energy storage devices. Here, we establish a paradigm change in battery assembly by fabricating rechargeable Li-ion batteries solely by multi-step spray painting of its components on a variety of materials such as metals, glass, glazed ceramics and flexible polymer substrates. We also demonstrate the possibility of interconnected modular spray painted battery units to be coupled to energy conversion devices such as solar cells, with possibilities of building standalone energy capture-storage hybrid devices in different configurations.