Large-Area Paper Batteries with Ag and Zn/Ag Screen-Printed Electrodes

Large-area paper batteries have been explored in this paper, correlating electrode materials and screen printing with the electrochemical performances. The use of office paper embedded in salt solution with two electrodes performed by an easy and large-scale application technique opens doors to a new concept of energy storage. The proposed device is Li-free and uses zinc and silver powder-based screen printable pastes to deposit the electrodes. Cyclic voltammetry and charge-discharge curves reveal the performance of the produced devices using NaCl and KOH solutions in different concentrations. The simulation of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements gave clue of a similar working mechanism to conventional Li-ion batteries. After charging, a single paper battery achieves 1.83 V with 60 mA/cm² and 90.6% charge-discharge efficiency. As a proof of concept, a small paper battery and a set integrated in series and parallel were used to power a commercial red light-emitting diode.