A Busan-based company has been developing J.Flex, an advanced lithium-ion battery that is ultra-thin, flexible, and rechargeable for the past few years now. The company used terms like bend, roll, twist, scrunch, fold, flex to describe the battery. EJ Shin, head of strategic planning at Jenax says:
What we’re doing at Jenax is putting batteries into locations where they couldn’t be before.” She goes on “we’re now interacting with machines on a different level from what we did before,
this was demonstrated at CES 2020 in Las Vegas.
The devices unveiled by Jenax includes a sensor-lined sports helmet developed by UK-based firm HP1 Technologies for measuring pressure and force of impact, a medical sensor patch designed in France that can be embedded in clothings, for monitoring a wearer’s heart rate, and wearable power banks in form of belts and bracelets for patients who continuously have to be hooked up to medical devices. Shin says:
You don’t want to carry a big, bulky battery on your body all the time. It’s heavy, uncomfortable, and sticks out from your clothes that’s when you need very thin, flexible batteries.
Nicholas Kotov, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan is of the opinion that such kind of batteries may one day power more than just wearables, He identifies unmanned aerial vehicles as one example. A flexible battery installed in the wings or landing gear of such a device could create more space in the body for other components.
