A washable flexible battery is the next step to smart clothing

One of the biggest challenges in achieving the ability to produce “smart clothes” is to make them as “garments” as possible. Probably no one would like to remove the battery, sensors and cables from their pants or sweatshirts before each wash, which is why the flexible, washable battery is so important for the development of the market.

Scientists have developed perhaps the first flexible wash-resistant battery to be commercialized on a massive scale

Flexible electronics are developing at their best, and the battery from the University of British Columbia discussed today is definitely not the first, let alone the only one that is flexible and durable in terms of washing. The team responsible for this is well aware of this, because knowing the advantages and disadvantages of the existing electric batteries, they tried to create a version better than all the existing ones. The most important? It is cheap because the production cost is similar to a standard rechargeable battery.

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Rather than creating a lithium-ion battery filled with hardened materials inside a rigid outer element, the team turned to the chemistry of zinc and manganese dioxide (read more about it in Advanced Energy Materials). This one is attractive even for its low cost and high security. These materials have been crushed into fine pieces and embedded in a polymer to create ultra-thin and stretchy layers. Finally, several of them were stacked and sealed in the same polymer to seal the finished product.

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The resulting battery is flexible and can be stretched to twice its normal length. At the same time, it offers a decent capacity of 160 mAh and also durability, because it retains 75% of it for 500 charge and discharge cycles. On the wash durability side, the battery lasted 39 cycles. Therefore, the team is now working on increasing power output and battery life. This is not surprising, as the creation of the prototype has reportedly aroused commercial interest, and this could make the team a huge success.