World's Highest Energy Density Thin-Film Battery
Prof. Martin Peckerar & Prof. Neil Goldsman
 |
| Dr. Martin Peckerar |
Profs. Martin Peckerar and Neil Goldsman, along with their fellow researchers, have developed an improved, thin-film battery prototype to respond to the need for more power-efficient electronic devices in a variety of applications. The millimeter-thick, high-density, rechargeable batteries offers the highest energy storage density of any thin-film battery in the world. Remotely rechargeable, the batteries gather energy from environmental sources, such as solar energy, vibrations and radio waves. They can even recharge by simply pointing a cell phone at them.
The batteries are flexible, meaning they can conform to nearly any shape and act as part of an electronic device’s packaging. They attach to microchips, sensors, RFID chips, and small electronic components. The batteries are comprised entirely of environmentally friendly materials. The new batteries will make possible a number of stronger, smaller products, including wireless sensor networks, active RFID, wearable electronics and medical devices.
The researchers' environmentally friendly batteries recharge wirelessly at extremely low voltages, enabling them to take advantage of energy scavenging techniques not feasible with other batteries. They are well suited to power ultra-small electronics, including wireless sensor networks, implantable medical devices, RFID devices and smart cards, and could outlast many of those devices. FlexEl’s batteries can be manufactured using a cost-effective printing process.
The research team, FlexEl LLC, recently won the University of Maryland's Business Plan Competition, earning $20K as the winner of the information technology category. Team members include: ECE professors Marty Peckerar and Neil Goldsman; ECE research associate Zeynep Dilli; and Josekuttan Manikathuparambil, a graduate student in the Master’s Program in Telecommunications.
The FlexEl battery technology was also awarded University of Maryland Invention of the Year honors in the Physical Science category, Prof. Martin Peckerar and Prof. Neil Goldsman won for their invention, titled "World's Highest Energy Density Thin-Film Battery." Yves Ngu, Zeynep Dilli and George Metze from the National Security Agency also worked on the project.
 return to spotlight on research
|
