UTEP Printed a Battery Component in Almost Any Shape

A battery part that bends to the product

For decades, engineers have designed devices around the batteries that power them. A team at the University of Texas at El Paso just flipped that script. They 3D printed a key battery component in nearly any shape, which means the energy storage could one day be built directly into the product it serves.

Who did the work

The project was led by Alexis Maurel, a faculty member in UTEP's Department of Metallurgical, Materials and Biomedical Engineering. The team worked with Sandia National Laboratories and published its findings in the journal Communications Engineering.

The printed part is an essential piece of a rechargeable battery. Because it can take almost any form, designers are no longer locked into standard cell sizes and rectangles that waste space inside a device.

Where this could land first

The obvious targets are products where every millimeter counts. Wearable health gear, implantable medical tech and aerospace systems all stand to gain from power sources that fit the shell instead of ruling it.

Think of a hearing aid shaped to the ear, or a sensor tuned to a curved surface, with its power source molded into the same body. That is the promise here: storage that follows form instead of fighting it.

What is next

The researchers plan to keep refining the method and fold the printed components into complete battery cells. Turning a promising part into a working, shippable cell is the hard part, and it is where the team is headed now.

If they get there, the win is practical rather than flashy. Devices could get smaller, lighter and better packed, without the awkward gaps that today's fixed battery shapes force on every design.