To build their battery they sandwich a solid polyethylene oxide electrolyte between a lithium iron phosphate cathode and lithium titanate anode. All of these are thermoplastic materials, which can be stretched under mild heating (<a href="http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JESOAN00015900000400A349000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes&ref=no" target="_blank" class="news_link" title="Journal of the Electrochemical Society">Journal of the Electrochemical Society, DOI: 10.1149/2.020204jes</a>).


The material looks like artificial leather. After stretching, the team wove strips of it into cotton fabrics and used conductive threads to connect these batteries in series. This configuration was used to illuminate LEDs. "It's the first fully wearable, soft lithium-ion battery that uses no liquid electrolytes," claims Skorobogatiy.


A garment made of the material could provide hundreds of volts, he says, enabling applications in which a battery-backed garment could deliver power in an emergency. "We have enough power to emit a powerful distress signal or even save a life by defibrillating a patient," he says. 




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Bendy battery gives smart fabrics a charge