For our printable robots, we are planning to integrate printed battery as on-baord power. Currently, we choose Na-ion battery given the relative high voltage, low resistance, low cost, and high drain current, etc. There are two main types of Na-ion battery, i.e. sodium/sulfur battery and sodium/metal-chloride battery. The overall cell reactions for these two chemistries are as follows:
Sodium/sulfur battery:
sodium/metal-chloride battery:
To enable customing the battery regarding the requirement from our printable swimmer, we need to develope a new design and fabrication strategy for Na-ion battery. This method should be easy to implement in a plannar fashion.