David Savastano, Editor01.08.14
Developing flexible printed batteries that can be produced in-line is one of the keys to the future of printed electronics. The ability to utilize flexible, disposable batteries will allow designers to develop new form factors that coin batteries cannot match.
Imprint Energy, Inc., Alameda, CA, is one of the companies making headway in the field of printed batteries. Imprint Energy was co-founded by Brooks Kincaid and Dr. Christine Ho, two graduate students from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Ho had invented the Zinc Poly battery system, energy dense batteries that are also rechargeable. With seed capital from Dow Chemical's venture group, Imprint Energy opened its doors in 2010.
The Best Product Development Award noted that Imprint Energy has made a thin, flexible wearable wireless smart watch with E-ink displays and sensors, powered with printed rechargeable batteries, that can exchange information over a BlueTooth wireless link with a smartphone device (IPhone 4s-5s). This was based on Imprint's printed battery process and materials set to produce 50mWh ultra-thin, flexible batteries.
Dr. Devin MacKenzie, Imprint Energy’s CEO, said that the award from IDTechEx has great meaning to Imprint Energy.
“We are very thankful for the recognition, especially since we see the IDTechEx events as high quality events bringing together a valuable collection of vendors, developers and customers,” he said.
Dr. MacKenzie noted that the company is focusing on high power, thin, flexible batteries for wireless enabled products. Its key markets include wearable devices: fitness monitors, smart watches, medical devices, smart labels, card and sensors for the Internet of Things and larger capacity consumer batteries.
Imprint Energy is also working on an 18-month FlexTech Alliance-funded $725,000 R&D project to expand the performance characteristics of printed, flexible Zn rechargeable batteries to a level applicable to flexible display, wireless and energy harvesting devices with high functionality.
Imprint Energy’s zinc-based thin film batteries offer a number of key advantages; Dr. MacKenzie pointed to the thin, flexible design, as well as the battery’s high energy density, rechargeability, low toxicity and safety.
The Zinc Poly battery uses air-stable, earth-abundant, robust materials set that is manufacturable by print-based thick film processing such a screen printing, and will be scalable to large dimensions for sheet or web-processing, which will help it reduce its cost relative to lithium polymer-based batteries.
The company has developed partnerships, including with Thin Film Electronics ASA to develop battery technology for Thin Film's printed memory, sensor and logic technologies. Dr. MacKenzie said that Imprint Energy is nearing commercialization of its Zinc Poly batteries, and he sees opportunities in what is quickly becoming a sizable market.
“We are working on product prototypes, and are currently raising financing to scale to our first commercial product over the next 18 months,” Dr. MacKenzie concluded. “We look at the printed and small portable electronics market broadly, where we see a $1B battery opportunity for our printed thin cell technology.”