CES 2017: Panasonic Revealed A Bendable Lithium-ion Battery

This year at CES in Las Vegas, Panasonic is showing off a new type of lithium-ion battery . The razor-thin silver wafer can be twisted or bent 1,000 times and still maintain 80 percent of its capacity. Panasonic presented three versions of the new battery at CES: each is slightly smaller than a credit card and bendy enough to fir around a soda can’s contours.

The battery is now ready for mass production, which she expects will begin sometime between April 2017 and March 2018. Panasonic’s bendable battery, which is just 0.55 mm thick, is relatively low-capacity. The largest version, known as CG-064065, has a maximum capacity of 60 milliamp Hours (mAh), and the smallest comes in at 17.5 mAh. For comparison, the largest smartphone batteries boast around 3,500 mAh.

That means the new battery is best suited for wearables, card-like devices, and Internet of Things applications. In future it may be possible to scale up its design to create a flexible smartphone or tablet.

Read more at IEEE Spectrum

Image Credit: Amy Nordrum

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