Hi there,

Flexible batteries, the gymnasts of the battery world, can be bent, stretched, rolled and folded.

Thanks to this flexibility, they’re popping up everywhere—from wearable medical tech and sensors to bendy displays, smartwatches, and even high-tech fabrics.

And there are some cool startups out there that are stretching the limits of what flexible batteries can do.

For instance Libest (a Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology spinoff founded in 2016) is offering flexible batteries with capacity up to 1300 mAh.

The bending tests done on these batteries (bending radius= 20 mm at 25°C) found that the flexible battery retained 98% capacity even after 5000 bending cycles.

The start-up has even received international safety test certifications, including UN38.3 and UL1642 for bending, twisting, folding and rolling.

We also noticed something interesting. Last year, Libest filed a patent in collaboration with Khvatec, a Korea based designer and manufacturer of electronic components. Their patent focuses on innovating the configuration of electrode plates inside the battery.

This collaboration hints that Libest could be tapping into Khvatec’s electronic know-how of developing complex electrode geometries required in flexible batteries.

We have compiled data on similar innovative startups who are pushing the limits of energy storage in exciting ways- https://www.greyb.com/blog/battery-energy-storage-companies/

Through research and patent data, we are able to see upcoming innovations and future collaborations (or power couples ) in the making. If you are interested in knowing the research that’s brewing in your industry beforehand, we can have a discussion.

Always charged up to find new innovations,
Deepak

P.S.- I wanted to share that I saw Libest display their flexible batteries at CES 2023. They won the Innovation Award for their ‘Flame resistant and Anti-freeze’ battery manufacturing technology. It was very cool to see batteries that have both flame retardant and antifreeze properties!