Bendable Battery Breakthrough: A Kickstart To The Era of Flexible Phones

Korean scientists have claimed that they made a breakthrough in bendable batteries by inventing materials that can be used for creating lithium-ion batteries that are flexible. These batteries could in turn be used to build phones and other electronics that area flexible.

Korea Joongang Daily quoted Ministry of Education, Science and Technology that traditional batteries are formed by putting liquefied electrolytes inside a case. The new approach to creating batteries does not rely on liquefied electrolytes which require cases, but on solid and fluid-like polymer electrolytes which do not require a case.

This approach is far from the Nokia Morph concept that had swept people off their feet back in 2008. Nevertheless, these batteries prove to be a milestone in flexible electronics and can provide a number of benefits.

Joongang Daily further reported that the new flexible battery will be even more resilient and stable than the existing ones. Unlike these batteries, the traditional ones carry the threat of explosion which favors the new approach.

Another important facet is the speed with which the battery can be manufactured. All that requires is for the fluid polymer electrolytes to be spread on the surface of electrodes just like jam and expose them to UV radiations for about 30 seconds.

The team which worked on the development of flexible batteries was led by Professor Lee Sang-young, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. The findings of the team will be published in Advanced Materials sometime this year. Flexible computing was in the news for a while now with a prototype of foldable LED display that Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology had developed last year.