Edible Electronics and Robofood: A Move Towards Sensors for Edible Robots and Robotic Food

Annese, Valerio F.; Coco, Giulia; Galli, Valerio; Cataldi, Pietro; Caironi, Mario

doi:10.1109/fleps57599.2023.10220412

Cited by 8 publications

References 31 publications

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A Coplanar Edible Rechargeable Battery with Enhanced Capacity

Galli,

Annese,

Coco

et al. 2024

Adv Materials Technologies

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Edible rechargeable batteries represent a novel opportunity for energy storage, which currently involves the use of toxic materials. Being entirely made of food‐derived materials and additives, such batteries open the way to electronic systems characterized by unprecedented features. Their sustainability and safety can be crucial for replacing traditional batteries in low‐power applications, like agrifood and medicine, reducing environmental impact and health hazards. Yet, limitations in capacity and architecture, and concerns about stability at elevated temperature, humidity, and prolonged storage time, severely limit their current application potential. Here, a new coplanar architecture of a riboflavin‐quercetin edible battery with increased capacity, reaching 20 µAh, and operational stability of two weeks is presented. The battery is tested in diverse environmental conditions to assess its possible implementation in different scenarios, showing stable performance between 0 and 37 °C. As a proof‐of‐concept application, the coplanar architecture is exploited to develop a 3‐cell battery with a voltage of ≈2 V and demonstrate the possibility of powering a commercial Internet of Things (IoT) module. The new design and data herein presented represent significant steps toward widening the opportunities offered by edible batteries and their implementation in low‐power electronics.

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A Coplanar Edible Rechargeable Battery with Enhanced Capacity

Galli,

Annese,

Coco

et al. 2024

Adv Materials Technologies

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A Sprayable Electrically Conductive Edible Coating for Piezoresistive Strain Sensing

Annese,

Cataldi,

Galli

et al. 2023

Advanced Sensor Research

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Edible electronics leverages the electronic properties of food‐derived materials to deliver safer technologies that can be degraded (or digested) in the environment (or body) at the end‐of‐life. Sensors will be central to future smart edible robots, and edible strain sensors are particularly interesting as they can transduce deformation, providing real time feedback of the movement. Yet, to date edible strain sensors have been limited to the use of ionic conductive hydrogels, resulting in sensors not directly suitable for direct current operation and therefore not compatible with existing edible batteries. Here, the first edible strain sensor based on electronic conduction made of a novel conductive ink sprayed over an edible substrate is presented. The ink formulation consists of activated carbon (conductor), Haribo gummy bears (binder), and water−ethanol mixture (dispersant). The ink, deposited on multiple substrates by spray deposition, produces edible electrically conductive composite coatings with resistivity of ≈50 Ω cm. The coatings were used as a piezoresistive layer to fabricate strain sensors with gauge factors of 19−92 suitable for direct current operation. As a proof‐of‐concept of future edible systems, the sensor is validated by integrating it within a gelatin actuator to produce a sensorized gripper powered by an edible battery.

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Edible Electronics for Sustainable Agrifood: Towards the Integration of Edible Rechargeable Batteries with Sensor Networks

Galli,

Coco,

Annese

et al. 2023

2023 IEEE Conference on AgriFood Electronics (CAFE)

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As sensor networks become increasingly used in every step of the agricultural food chain, sustainability remains an underdeveloped aspect when implementing agrifood monitoring systems. Although electronics experienced exponential growth yielding to ultra-low power systems, most sensing nodes employ commercial batteries that are constituted by potentially harmful chemicals and might leak into the environment producing irreversible damage.Here we present a feasibility study aimed at demonstrating the compatibility of a recently developed edible rechargeable battery with commercial sensors for agrifood. The edible battery is completely made of edible materials, namely foodgrade gold, ethyl cellulose, beeswax, activated carbon, riboflavin, quercetin, sodium hydrogen sulfate, and nori algae. As such, the battery does not contain any hazardous substances and can be disposed of by a variety of means, including composting. We demonstrate the integration of the battery with commercial thermistors and photoresistors to measure temperature and light intensity, respectively, which are relevant parameters in agricultural food production. We show that the performance of the edible battery is suitable for supplying power to commercial sensors therefore demonstrating its great potential for sustainable agrifood systems.

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Edible Electronics and Robofood: A Move Towards Sensors for Edible Robots and Robotic Food

Cited by 8 publications

References 31 publications

A Coplanar Edible Rechargeable Battery with Enhanced Capacity

A Coplanar Edible Rechargeable Battery with Enhanced Capacity

A Sprayable Electrically Conductive Edible Coating for Piezoresistive Strain Sensing

Edible Electronics for Sustainable Agrifood: Towards the Integration of Edible Rechargeable Batteries with Sensor Networks

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