Printable Zinc batteries

The rapid growth of distributed sensing and connectivity is creating a class of “structural” electronics in which power sources must conform to surfaces, survive bending and handling, and meet tight cost and safety constraints. Conventional primary lithium cells deliver good energy density but impose rigid form factors, flammability risks, and dangerous-goods logistics, while energy-harvesting approaches alone rarely provide sufficient peak power or guaranteed autonomy in real-world duty cycles. This talk introduces printed zinc batteries as a complementary power platform tailored for flexible, disposable and semi-durable IoT devices.

The first part of the presentation will briefly review the underlying aqueous zinc chemistry, focusing on the key design and performance parameters and roll to roll printing production and on how electrode architecture and seal design affect areal capacity, shelf life and abuse tolerance.

The second part will connect device-level metrics to IoT application requirements. Using representative use cases such as BLE/LoRa smart labels and wearable sensors, the talk will map printed battery performance (voltage windows, pulse currents, temperature range and lifetime) to typical radio and sensor duty cycles, and show how right-sizing the printed footprint and stack design can meet peak-current demands while maintaining label-like thickness. Integration aspects—including direct printing onto or into flexible substrates, encapsulation choices, and co-design with antennas and NFC/RFID structures—will be outlined to illustrate how power can be embedded without compromising mechanics or industrial design. Finally, the talk will touch on manufacturing and sustainability considerations, including roll-to-roll scalability, material utilisation, and end-of-life pathways for zinc-based printed cells, and suggest where printed zinc batteries are likely to complement or replace conventional coin cells in the emerging flexible electronics ecosystem.