It is 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 is only a prototype a few inches (centimeters) square right now, U.S. 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 battery uses paper infused with an 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.
Some students were working on methods to dissolve paper and cast it into membranes for use in dialysis machines. Meanwhile, other students in RPI’s materials science department were trying to make carbon nanotube composites using polymers. The two groups got together and realized they could use paper instead of polymers and combine the two projects. Then came another group of students, also at RPI, who said the project — a thin sheet black on one side and white on the other — looked like an electrical device. And over a period of about 18 months, the groups developed the projects, into a battery, a capacitor and a combination of the two.
This collaborative effort involved the Rensselaer departments of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical and Biological Engineering, the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, and the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center.