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Printable Batteries Should Arrive Next Year
FullBandwidth writes "Paper-thin batteries that can be printed onto greeting cards or other flexible substrates have been demonstrated at Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems in Germany. The batteries have a relatively short life span, as the anode and cathode materials dissipate over time. However, they contain no hazardous materials."
Yeah, and you thought printer ink cartridges were expensive now.
Now we can have an unlimited supply of electrical energy. Just keep photocopying the batteries!
Now we can have cards with OLED displays that can show a message delived by you in person, via a video! Quite cool, I think.
-- Cheers!
The biggest problem with aging materials is their propensity to leak. Take your mother, for example. When I first met her, she was in her 60's and had an ass like a drum. But after a decade of giving her the old backdoor to and fro, she now leaks like a sieve. I'd recommend taking her to get fitted for a colostomy bag, but that's your family's business, not mine.
So too with batteries. As they age and rust, the internal chemicals are liable to leak and cause serious harm to the environment. There really isn't any good way to dispose of these batteries that doesn't come at great cost or cause chemical contamination.
This development using organic compounds and no harmful lead or mercury is a godsend for those of us in the environmental movement. It has been a source of great consternation that greeting cards and other miniature throw-away gadgets have contained batteries with harmful chemicals, and now that seems to be a thing of the past.
It also has the side effect of making the card itself less bulky, so not only are you saving the environment by not polluting the groundwater, you're saving precious resources by buying products made of lighter materials.
Great... but how long will they last? What is the point of embedding them if they pitter out in a matter of days?
I'll wait till they those that can be repainted with power.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute did this already, as mentioned in this article from a couple years back.
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I'm willing to bet that it'll take less than a week before some enterprising geek manages to collect about a million of these batteries and makes a big battery pile out of them to create the most powerful printed battery. Why? Because it's possible :D
(and it'll be posted on this site and we'll all be gawking at it and making jokes about Beowulf clusters of batteries, ad infinitum, ad nauseam)
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
What the fuck is up with the "survey" pop-up you get in the summary's link?
You guys filter submissions for funky links? At all?
Power Paper. Screen-printed zinc-manganese batteries on paper and polymer substrates are at least ten years old. (They're not the only supplier, either.)
In my high school chemistry class we made paper batteries. We took a single piece of filter paper, and we took an eyedropper and we spilled various chemicals on the filter paper in an "X" pattern. You would then place a piece of metal (depending on your liquid, copper, zinc, lead) and put it on the paper, and figure out what combination of chemicals and metals gave you electricity (as measured by a handy multimeter). The entire thing was soaked with a saline solution so it conducted electricity. The exercise was fairly simple, and well understood. It was also one of the two labs we did in chemistry, which was really depressing because it was the "advanced class" and the loser normal class was making silver coated bottles, tie die shirts, candy, silly putty, and all sorts of things week after week. Stupid normal class with their fun and useful facts.
Anyway, I did this experiment in 2003. The real news story here should be, "New way to use something old." not "New and mind bogglingly challenging concept".
Could a terrorist build some nasty device with these . . . ? I don't know why that's the first thing that came to my mind. Maybe because for that last eight years, governments and the media have been pounding a mantra into my mind: "Terrorist / Security / Terrorist / Security . . ." Soon it will be easier to print a list permitted items to take on a plane, as opposed to forbidden items.
Although, James Bond could pull one out of his sock to escape some bizarre execution method of the Evil Genius.
Or, Imagine a MacGyver armed with these . . . !
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
. . . that the folks at the Fraunhofer Institute have invented a time machine as well!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Could a terrorist build some nasty device with these . . . ?
Great, you've just given Homeland Security an excuse to ban paper from being brought onto a plane.
those are quite handy :)
Infinite Power Solutions is already making a thin-film lithium ion battery that is extremely rechargeable. No need to wait for this technology!
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Power Paper has been producing printable battery tech for YEARS
http://www.powerpaper.com/home.php
Surprisingly, they've taken it into the cosmetics business.
Who wants to find another wheel we can reinvent.
I wouldn't consider the mad hatter mad. Just reality impaired. He sure can make a mean cup of tea.
Could a terrorist build some nasty device with these . . . ? I don't know why that's the first thing that came to my mind. Maybe because for that last eight years, governments and the media have been pounding a mantra into my mind: "Terrorist / Security / Terrorist / Security . . ." Soon it will be easier to print a list permitted items to take on a plane, as opposed to forbidden items.
Although, James Bond could pull one out of his sock to escape some bizarre execution method of the Evil Genius.
Or, Imagine a MacGyver armed with these . . . !
Everyone knows it's blinking LEDs that explode. Ask the experts in Boston. They have foiled several menacing plots from the evil LED terrorists.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
So now I can print my own batteries, recharge them with my own printed solar panels, to power my inkjet printed LCD panels.
Awesome! If only I could get a printer that does the whole lot.
Unless they are being secretive.
Hopefully no one will discover the galvanic series, then their secret will be out!
All apologies for not making a inkjet or laser printer joke!
Why is this even on SlashDot?... Why is this even on Slashdot?...Why is this even on Slashdot?
.. something a bit more intelligent, like a small solar sheet maybe? Open the card, and voila! The songs plays...
Offtopic - For When I don't get the joke!