Flexible battery cells modeled on snake scales were created

One of the most recent publications in Soft Robotics presents the work of a team of engineers from the Korean Institute of Machines and Materials (KIMM). They were inspired by natural snake scales when developing flexible battery cells.

Snake scales inspired flexible battery cells

The skin of a snake may appear stiff on the surface, but due to the presence of overlapping scales, these crawling reptiles retain high body flexibility, allowing them to adapt to their environment. In addition, the scales effectively protect the entire body against external attacks or collisions. This combination of features turned out to be the perfect basis for the work of this team with KIMM.

Also read: File? Folder? Ma’am, what is it? Students in the US have a problem with the basics

The team aims to provide the world with flexible battery cells without sacrificing stability and performance. This is within the reach of a design inspired by snakeskin scales which, in the manifestation of biomimicry, has been transformed into a new mechanical meta-structure, ensuring high flexibility of the battery cells. These are simply a series of small, hard, hexagonal links connected to each other, which together form a structure that resembles a snake’s skin.

Also read: Are you afraid of spying at home? Do not even look at the Astro robot from Amazon

They are connected by both copper and polymer materials, and the very process of “folding and unfolding” enabled them to be hinged. This approach minimized the deformation of the components that make up the batteries, which increased their overall safety level. Their use can range from wearable gadgets (smartwatches with flexible screens) to soft robots for professional use. Interestingly, their production is supposed to be simple, because it would largely resemble “industrial origami folding” (via Interesting Engineering).