Project title: Ultrathin flexible materials for a battery-less, sustainable, and environment friendly smart society
Main applicant: Venkata Kamalakar Mutta, Division of Molecular and Condensed Matter Physics
Grant amount: 2 999 755 SEK
Today, batteries power up mobile devices, sensors, electric vehicles, and residential/industrial power backup facilities. However, there are cumulative effects of producing, disposing, or recycling batteries to environmental pollution, including fire-hazard and safety issues. By 2050, the global sensor network of the internet of things (IoT) consisting of healthcare, wearable smart devices to earthquake warning systems, is expected to surpass 1 trillion sensors. Thus, there is a serious need to develop new materials for safer self-powered technologies that can operate by harnessing renewable energy. The goal here is to develop ultrathin materials of high-quality scalable laminates by stacking multiple sheets of atomically thin graphene and graphene-like other crystals, composed of the naturally abundant elements. We will use such sheets to create novel energy harvesters and special high-density dry ultracapacitors. These key innovations will pave the way for alternative environmentally safer technologies for a sustainable and smart society. The project will be conducted at the Ångström laboratory with state-of-the-art material processing and characterization tools.
