Recently, scientists have been looking at the Japanese paper-folding art of origami as inspiration for novel flexible energy-storage technologies. While there have been breakthroughs in battery flexibility, there has yet to be a successful development of stretchable batteries. Now, researchers from Arizona State University have unveiled a way to make batteries stretch, yielding big potential outcomes for wearable electronics.
The Arizona State University research team includes ECS member and advisor of the ECS Valley of the Sun student chapter, Candace K. Chan. Chan and the rest of the team were inspired by a variation of origami called kirigami when developing this new generation of lithium-ion batteries.
According to the researchers, the new battery can be stretched more than 150 percent of its original size and still maintain full functionality.