Transient Rechargeable Batteries Triggered by Cascade Reactions

Abstract

Transient battery is a new type of technology that allows the battery to disappear by an external trigger at any time. In this work, we successfully demonstrated the first transient rechargeable batteries based on dissoluble electrodes including V2O5 as the cathode and lithium metal as the anode as well as a biodegradable separator and battery encasement (PVP and sodium alginate, respectively). All the components are robust in a traditional lithium-ion battery (LIB) organic electrolyte and disappear in water completely within minutes due to triggered cascade reactions. With a simple cut-and-stack method, we designed a fully transient device with an area of 0.5 cm by 1 cm and total energy of 0.1 J. A shadow-mask technique was used to demonstrate the miniature device, which is compatible with transient electronics manufacturing. The materials, fabrication methods, and integration strategy discussed will be of interest for future developments in transient, self-powered electronics. The demonstration of a miniature Li battery shows the feasibility toward system integration for all transient electronics.

A Fully Biodegradable Battery for Self‐Powered Transient Implants

“…Alternative strategies with nonmetallic electrode materials have been proposed, such as edible sodium‐ion batteries based on melanins or activated carbon and sugar‐based enzymatic fuel cells . Eco‐friendly battery systems targeting nonbiological applications have also been presented, including transient lithium‐ion batteries through chemical reactions or chemical/mechanical disintegration and primary flow battery using organic quinone redox species . The major challenges of these systems are either containing nondegradable or non‐biocompatible battery components resulting in unnecessary materials retention that could cause adverse effects to the human body and the environment, or battery characteristics (e.g., voltage, power, capacity, or lifetime) that could fall beyond practical applications.…”

Materials and processing approaches for foundry-compatible transient electronics

“…Carefully selected device designs and encapsulation layers allow electronic systems formed with these materials to operate in a stable, high-performance manner for a desired time and then to degrade and disappear completely, at a molecular level, to biocompatible and ecocompatible end products. The results enable bioresorbable implants that bypass secondary surgical procedures for extraction, environmental sensors that avoid the need for retrieval and collection after use, and compostable electronics that eliminate costs and risks associated with recycling operations (24)(25)(26). Specific examples in the research literature include simple passive and active components (e.g., resistors, Si transistors), complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) inverters and their logic gates, sensors and detectors, energy storage devices and harvesters, and wireless RF power scavengers (27)(28)(29)(30).…”

Biosafe, Eco‐Friendly Levan Polysaccharide toward Transient Electronics

“…Other strategies, such as overcoats of inactive encapsulation layers, regulation of properties, and dimensions of active materials, can be exploited to control the transience time in function . Beyond dissolution control with prescribed time span in a passive manner, actively programmable and on‐demand controlled degradations are possible via optical sources, temperature, and a series of chemical reactions . Figure b presents a schematic description and transient circuit diagram of in vitro demonstration for a tunable lifetime of a dissolvable integrated circuit in response to optical stimuli using commercial light‐emitting diodes (LED) connected with Mg electrodes/interconnects.…”