SBIR Phase I: High-performance flexible batteries for electronic wearables

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is that the proposed flexible battery technology solves the major problems (e.g. mechanical failure, low capacity) of the existing battery designs for wearable/flexible electronics (e.g. smart watches, apparel, eye wear, and medical patches). Xerion Advanced Battery Corporation (XABC)?s battery design can potentially close the current technological gap between electronic devices and their supporting batteries and further accelerate the wearable/flexible electronics sector, which is expected to grow at 53.7% compounded annual growth rate. The development of this battery technology will provide important scientific insights and practical guidance towards various fundamental principles of battery designs such as stress handling, form factor adaptability, assembly, integration, and energy and power optimization. Furthermore, XABC?s novel battery fabrication technique, which utilizes a high throughput electroplating process to produce battery grade materials and electrodes, has the potential to drive innovations in other energy storage initiatives (e.g. high-energy, low-cost batteries for automotive) in both academia and industry. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project describes an innovative flexible battery design to meet the growing demand for wearable/flexible electronics. The proposed flexible batteries are made of electrodes realized via directly electroplating high-quality, high-energy battery materials on current collectors. In most existing flexible batteries, battery materials are bonded by polymer binders, resulting in loose contacts during bending and thus loss of battery materials. In contrast, the electroplated materials are chemically bonded to the current collector, which significantly enhances the electrode integrity during repeated bending and deformation. Such strong bonding also enables fast electron transport in the electrode and thus boosts the battery power. Here, XABC will develop high-performance flexible batteries via its patented electroplating technique. Research will focus on investigating various aspects of the flexible battery design including electroplating optimization, current collector selection, battery assembly, and packaging. XABC will demonstrate capability of making fully packaged flexible battery prototypes with various form factors for flexible electronics and perform detailed electrochemical and mechanical characterization. The proposed flexible battery prototype is expected to show high energy, high power, and excellent capacity retention after thousands of bending and deformation cycles.