Fully Printed and Integrable Zn-Ag Battery-Hierarchical Sensor for Scalable Manufacturing of Monolithic Wearables

How to develop a unified manufacturing strategy that can achieve high-speed and low-cost production while ensuring the physical and electrical independence between functional components to build high-performance flexible electrical systems remains a challenge. Herein, a fabrication method of screen printing is introduced to enable the preparation and interconnection of flexible zinc-silver batteries and pressure sensors. The introduction of a mild electrolyte of ZnCl₂ reduces the cathode dissolution, thereby enhancing the stability and reliability of the battery system. Moreover, the hierarchical structure of the sensing layer introduced by screen printing, combined with interdigital electrodes (IDEs) printed on rough paper, forms a multi-scale hierarchical pressure sensor. The contact resistance at different scales varied during compression, significantly enhancing the sensitivity of the printed pressure sensor (413.03 kPa^-1). Furthermore, integrating the printed battery with the pressure sensor to assemble an integrated sensing-energy system enables gesture monitoring and recognition. Leveraging the independent operation of the two devices, the scalability of screen printing, and its cost-effectiveness, this approach could enable the next-generation of wearable electronics, contributing to advanced and sustainable technological solutions.