{"id":240719,"date":"2026-07-13T07:05:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/3d-printed-battery-electrolyte-could-let-devices-store-power-in-almost-any-shape"},"modified":"2026-07-13T07:05:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:05:44","slug":"3d-printed-battery-electrolyte-could-let-devices-store-power-in-almost-any-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/3d-printed-battery-electrolyte-could-let-devices-store-power-in-almost-any-shape","title":{"rendered":"3D-printed battery electrolyte could let devices store power in almost any shape"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/3d-printed-battery-electrolyte-could-let-devices-store-power-in-almost-any-shape2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso have developed a way to 3D-print an essential battery component in nearly any shape. Their innovation could free engineers from the constraints of standard rechargeable battery sizes and allow energy storage to be built directly into the devices the batteries power.<\/p>\n<p>The work, detailed in a study published in Communications Engineering, centers on gel polymer electrolytes, the material inside a battery that carries the ions (the particles that carry the electrical charge) between the electrodes\u2014the two terminals where chemical reactions occur and electricity enters or leaves the battery.<\/p>\n<p>From liquid limits to printable gel Conventional electrolytes are liquids that must be sealed inside rigid casings, a design that limits battery shapes and raises safety concerns about leaks. The UTEP team instead created a printable gel by combining a light-curable resin with a lithium-based liquid electrolyte, then hardening it layer by layer using a technique called vat photopolymerization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso have developed a way to 3D-print an essential battery component in nearly any shape. Their innovation could free engineers from the constraints of standard rechargeable battery sizes and allow energy storage to be built directly into the devices the batteries power. The work, detailed in a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,19,1497,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3d-printing","category-chemistry","category-energy","category-engineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}