Researchers at MIT Have 3D Printed The World’s Longest Rechargeable Battery As A Fibre 140m Long As Part Of A LiFi System

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    Researchers at MIT Have 3D printed The World’s Longest Rechargeable Battery As A Fibre 140m Long As Part Of A LiFi System

    Credit to pureLiFi

    MIT Research Team

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has since played a key role in the development of modern technology and science and has been ranked among the top academic institutions in the world.

    Founded in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. The institute has an urban campus that extends more than a mile (1.6 km) alongside the Charles River, and encompasses a number of major off-campus facilities such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Bates Center, and the Haystack Observatory, as well as affiliated laboratories such as the Broad and Whitehead Institutes.

    Researchers at MIT in the US recently developed a rechargeable lithium-ion battery in the form of a fibre that could be woven into fabrics.

    As a proof of concept the team produced the world’s longest fibre battery at 140 meters long with a process that could produce a battery as long as 1 km. The 140m fibre has an energy storage capacity of 123 mAh to charge smartwatches or phones and is only a few hundred microns in diameter, making it suitable for weaving into materials for wearable systems.

    The fibre battery is made with the use of new electrolyte gels and a standard fibre-drawing system that starts with a larger cylinder containing all the components and then heats it to just below its melting point. The material is drawn through a narrow opening to compress all the parts to a fraction of their original diameter, while maintaining all the original arrangement of parts.

    This embeds the lithium and other materials inside the fibre, with a protective outside coating, thus directly making this version stable and waterproof. “There’s no obvious upper limit to the length. We could definitely do a kilometre-scale length,” says researcher Tural Khudiyev, who is now an assistant professor at National University of Singapore.

    “This is the first 3D printing of a fibre battery device,” said Khudiyev. “After printing, you do not need to add anything else, because everything is already inside the fibre, all the metals, all the active materials. It’s just a one-step printing. That’s a first.”

    “When we embed the active materials inside the fibrer, that means sensitive battery components already have a good sealing and all the active materials are very well-integrated, so they don’t change their position,” he said. The aspect ratio is up to a million, making it practical to use standard weaving equipment to create fabrics that incorporate the batteries as well as electronic systems.

    A demonstration device uses the fibre battery to power an LED and receiver in a LiFi light-based communication system. The team has also embedded multiple LEDs into the fibre.


    Article source: https://www.eenewseurope.com/news/worlds-longest-fibre-battery-powers-lifi-system

    What is LiFi?

    LiFi, also known as "Light Fidelity" is a wireless optical networking technology, which uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to transmit data. In 2011, professor Harald Haas made a LiFi demonstration at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Global Talk on Visible Light Communication (VLC).

    VLC uses light as a medium to deliver high-speed communication like Wi-Fi and complies with the IEEE standard IEEE 802.15.7. The IEEE 802.15.7 is a high-speed, bidirectional, and fully networked wireless communication technology-based standard similar to Wi-Fi's IEEE 802.11.

    How does LiFi work?

    LiFi is a high speed, bidirectional, and fully networked wireless communication of data using light. LiFi constitutes of several light bulbs that form a wireless network.

    When an electrical current goes through to a LED light bulb, a stream of light (photons) emits from the lamp. LED bulbs are semiconductor devices, which means that the brightness of the light flowing through them can change at extremely high speeds. The signal is sent by modulating the light at different rates. The signal can then be received by a detector that interprets the changes in light intensity (the signal) as data. Also when the LED is ON, you transmit a digital 1, and when it is OFF, you transmit a 0.

    LiFi Benefits

    The primary benefits of LiFi are as follows:

    Security: Provides entirely secure access. Where there is no light there is no data.

    Safety: Does not produce electromagnetic radiation and does not interfere with existing electronic systems.

    Localisation: Allows localisation due to the small coverage area of LiFi access point - localisation can be used for very precise asset tracking.

    Data density: Provides ubiquitous high-speed wireless access that offers substantially greater data density (data rate per unit area) than RF through high bandwidth reuse.

    Credit to Oledcomm

    LiFi Applications

    LiFi can be used for so many applications and the list is increasing every year. You can read our updated list of Li-Fi applications at the following link:

    https://www.lifitn.com/blog/2021/2/13/top-30-li-fi-applications-updated-list-including-potential-applications

    Credit to pureLiFi

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