Achieving impact-buffered compressible batteries through 3D printing-assisted design of negative Poisson's ratio structural electrodes
image: Figure 1: Design concept and schematic fabrication process of the impact-buffered structural electrodes. (a) Advantages of NPR-structural electrodes compared to the thin film structure and mesh structure. (b) Schematic illustration of the fabrication process through a directional freezing 3D printing-assisted strategy. (c) Photos of the 3D-printed electrode architectures.
Credit: Li Y, Ni X H, Zhang S J, et al.
As portable electronics, wearable devices, and electric vehicles become more widespread, energy storage systems face growing demands for flexibility, compressibility, and impact resistance. Traditional rigid batteries often fail under mechanical stress, leading to performance loss or safety risks.
In a recent study led by Prof. Zhiyang Lyu from Southeast University, a novel metamaterial-inspired 3D printing strategy was developed to produce impact-buffered compressible structural electrodes, enabling lithium-ion batteries to withstand extreme mechanical deformation while maintaining high electrochemical performance.
“Designing electrodes that can deform without losing functionality is extremely challenging,” explains Prof. Lyu. “Our goal was to create a system that combines high compressibility with excellent electrochemical stability, making batteries safer and more reliable under impact or compression.”
The team's innovation is based on two advances :
- Auxetic metamaterial electrode design: By integrating negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR) structures at the macroscopic level with directional porous architectures at the microscopic level, the electrodes can compress up to 50%, recover after repeated compression, and prevent package bulging.
- 3D printing-assisted fabrication: Using a directional freezing 3D printing strategy, the team produced customized electrodes with precise, complex geometries that were impossible with traditional coating methods, enhancing ion transport, mechanical resilience, and impact-buffering capability.
In performance tests, the 3D-printed lithium iron phosphate cathodes delivered an average specific capacity of 153 mAh/g over 100 cycles, while the assembled full cells demonstrated both excellent compressibility and impact-buffered resistance.
“This technology can be directly applied to flexible electronics, wearable devices, and impact-tolerant energy storage systems in electric vehicles,” adds Lyu. “By combining mechanical adaptability with stable electrochemical performance, it paves the way for safer, more reliable batteries that can survive collisions, compression, or accidental drops.”
The research team has open-sourced the code and fabrication strategy, and future work will focus on integrating these structural electrodes into commercial battery systems, offering a versatile platform for the next generation of deformable, impact-buffered energy storage devices.
The study was published in Fundamental Research.
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Contact the author: Zhiyang Lyu, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Design and Manufacturing of Precision Medicine Equipment, School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China, zhiyanglyu@seu.edu.cn
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