nanoREV.

NanoL&B Patent of the Week - Inkjet Printed Batteries (U.S. Patent 6,780,208)

In the latest issue of the Nanotechnology Law & Business journal Stefan Preisler and Gerd Lange describe the rising popularity of printable electronics manufactured using inkjet printing, roll-to-roll coating, and other printing techniques. Such printable electronics open the door to entirely new product applications and cheap fabrication of flexible electronics used for wide area electronic displays, solar cells or RFID tags. One of the key factors for enabling many flexible electronics applications will be the incorporation of lightweight power supplies. This patent from Hewlett Packard addresses this problem and teaches using inkjet technology to print electrolytic batteries. Claim 1 reads:

A method of making a battery comprising:

drop on demand printing a first electrode pattern and a second electrode pattern on a carrier medium; and applying an electrolyte region over a portion of the first electrode pattern and a portion of the second electrode pattern.