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Smart Dust Batteries Integrated with Near-Zero-Power Surveillance

Project description

The first smart-dust battery embedded with a low-power monitor

Smart dust, a network of tiny devices fitted with wireless micro-electromechanical sensors, is set to revolutionise the world. It is expected that it will be able to take on previously unachievable tasks. However, lack of an on-chip power source that provides uninterrupted energy prevents smart dust from being utilised in everyday applications. Batteries with adequate energy in an area of less than 1 mm2 are not available. The EU-funded SMADBINS project aims to address this by developing the first tiny battery for smart-dust applications, which will provide the energy for intelligent microsystems and microrobots.

Objective

The lack of an on-chip power source providing uninterrupted energy impedes the progress of smart dust in moving from lab-level demonstrations to everyday applications. Tiny generators relying on external energy sources face spatial and temporal limitations. Batteries with adequate energy are not available in an area of less than 1 mm2, and the reasons for their absence are manifold. Mainstream battery architectures require either thick or tall electrodes created by etching into the wafer, but it is very fiddly to deposit materials onto these electrodes without defects. High-capacity materials such as lithium cobalt oxide, sulfur and lithium metal are often excluded because on-chip techniques to synthesize or stabilize such materials are missing. Moreover, a low-power monitor to provide precise information about the energy storage state and battery health is essential for real applications but unexplored so far. These difficulties demand a paradigm shift in microbattery development to pursue novel approaches that offer energy-dense microbatteries integrable into microsystems. Therefore, we propose a micro-origami technology for on-chip microbatteries using aqueous zinc battery chemistry, together with embedded surveillance based on a non-volatile redox transistor with near-zero power consumption. SMADBINS is expected to bring advances in battery chemistry and materials and on-chip energy production and management, boosting research for microbattery and smart dust applications, as was recently highlighted by the PI [Nature, 2021, 589, 195]. The PI has decisively contributed to the field of aqueous microbatteries and developed the smart dust battery concept together with his team in several publications. However, a smart dust battery has not been achieved yet. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to develop the first smart dust battery embedded with a low-power monitor, which attains a footprint capacity of more than 10 mAh/cm2 within 1 mm2.

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Topic(s)

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG

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Host institution

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET CHEMNITZ
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 498 624,00
Address
STRASSE DER NATIONEN 62
09111 Chemnitz
Germany

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Region
Sachsen Chemnitz Chemnitz
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 498 624,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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