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Strategic Elements’ moisture-fuelled battery powers Bluetooth sensor device

Last updated: 10:47 30 Jun 2021 AEST, First published: 09:54 30 Jun 2021 AEST

Strategic Elements Ltd - Strategic Elements’ moisture-fuelled battery powers Bluetooth sensor device
The moisture-powered battery cells can be printed on surfaces like glass or plastic.

Strategic Elements Ltd (ASX:SOR) has achieved a critical development milestone, using its moisture-powered battery to charge a Bluetooth sensor device.

The tech-centric venture builder is working to create extremely small, thin and lightweight battery ink cells that can be printed on glass or plastic and self-charge as they detect humidity in the air or on a wearer’s skin.

Now, those batter cells have successfully powered a Cypress Semiconductor Internet of Things (IoT) sensor kit with temperature and humidity sensors and Bluetooth connectivity.

SOR’s battery ink cells generated power over a five-hour testing period, facilitating a real-time temperature and humidity data capture and transmitting the information to a laptop via Bluetooth with a seven-second sampling rate.

While the tech is still in the development stage, Strategic Elements is preparing prototypes for further testing in the coming quarter.

Potential game-changer for IoT

Broadly speaking, a printable, self-charging battery cell could support a range of IoT-connected devices with Bluetooth connectivity, but there’s one industry in particular where this tech could come to the fore.

As the world of wearable tech — think smartwatches, smart glasses and even GPS shoes — begins to evolve, so too do the batteries used to power the devices.

A Grand View Research report valued the wearable tech market at US$32.63 billion in 2019. However, with a compound annual growth rate of 15.9%, that figure is set to dramatically increase by 2027.

With the growing popularity of the IoT market-leading smart devices to become increasingly connected, there’s pressure for wearable tech to have significant, long-lasting battery power.

But because the tech needs to be portable, there’s also a need for that power source to be smaller and more innovative than before.

Enter SOR’s solution: graphene-oxide based battery ink cells.

Batteries, but not as you know them

The battery iteration uses readily available materials — namely graphene oxide and humidity — to power itself, making it a more environmentally friendly alternative to conventional lithium and coin cells.

The minuscule battery ink cells can be printed on a wide range of surfaces and are able to self-charge by generating electricity from humidity found in the air or on skin.

Currently, Strategic Elements is scaling down the battery ink cell size, meaning more batteries can be assembled in the same area to increase power output.

The company hopes to finalise the development and testing of a prototype battery ink formulated for screen printing over the next few weeks.

In addition to this, SOR is working on a battery pack that can generate more than a milliamp of electrical current. A prototype is anticipated around the middle of 2021’s third quarter.

Strategic collaborations

To create the self-charging battery, Strategic Elements partnered with the University of New South Wales in July last year, with the Australian Research Council has partially funded the collaboration.

As a Pooled Development Fund, mandated to back Australian innovation, SOR is invested in developing a suite of tech-centric solutions.

The company is currently working alongside giant US Fortune 100 Company Honeywell to build autonomous robotic security vehicles for the correctional justice sector.

It has also teamed up with the CSIRO and has licensed world-leading CSIRO technology that enables robots to work together in teams.

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