This Battery Shifts Shape

how it works

The battery uses electrolyte and carbon nanotubes that are embedded in the paper. The carbon nanotubes form the electrodes, the paper is the separator and the electrolyte allows the current to flow.

potential uses

Pulickel Ajayan of Rensselaer sees it used in combination with solar cells; perhaps layers of the paper batteries could store the electricity generated until it is needed, he said. It’s a battery that looks like a piece of paper and can be bent or twisted, trimmed with scissors or molded into any shape needed.

While the battery right now is only a prototype a few inches square , the researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who developed it have high hopes for it in electronics and other fields that need smaller, lighter power sources. The development is reported in this week’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

– By Randolph E. Schmid, The Associated Press

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