All-in-One ENERGISER design: Smart liquid metal-air battery

Self-powered integration is an effective way of promoting efficiency and miniaturizing in portable intelligent electronic systems. Conventional battery design focuses on the improvement of charge-discharge property, and energy storage units usually design independently from energy consumption units including sensing or transmitting device. Here, an unusual battery design in which the batteries possess the function of energy storage, sensing, and signal transducer, called all-in-one ENERGISER, is integrated for the first time, which is realized by fabricating a gallium-based liquid metal-air battery (LMAB)without any other extra electronic components. Gallium-based liquid metals (LMs)wetted on the coppered-coated carbon fibers act as anode and air electrode acts as the cathode, the chemical activity of LMs and the sensitivity of gallium oxide layer are utilized for sensing function. For the discharge performance of LMABs, the energy density of LMABs changes from 1.52 to 0.79 mWh/cm2 while the corresponding power densities range from 0.36 to 2.05 mW/cm2. Additionally, the function of sensing environmental parameters achieves selectively detecting main components of air and distinguishing liquid type. Remarkably, the physical signals, such as humidity, is converted into low and high-potential signals, and further encoded into digital signals. Eventually, the all-in-one battery strategy is validated and shows excellent energy storage capacity, marvelous sensing function, and superb signal transmitting activity. The all-in-one battery design concept may open up a new direction for the exploitation of state-of-the-art functional and highly integrated battery.