In this study, the fabrication of a 3D printed battery through electrodeposition is attempted. The electroplated 3D printed battery consists of two dissimilar electroplated electrodes immersed into an electrolyte.
Suitable materials and electrolyte had to be found that would allow the battery to be 3D printed without any assembly. While research papers have already proven that electrically conductive 3D printed materials can be electroplated, there is a lack of research in utilizing the electroplated 3D printed materials as electrodes in a battery and in the performance of such a battery. The process of electrodeposition is used to deposit copper and zinc metal ions onto the two electrically conductive electrodes.
A Galvanostat with a three electrode setup was used to keep the current stable and measure the current and voltage over time. Once the 3D printed battery was fabricated, electrochemical impedance measurements were taken with an LCR meter and the discharge voltage and current measurements were taken with a multimeter.
The 3D printed battery was attempted to be modelled by an equivalent circuit and its discharge graph compared with other currently researched batteries. In the end, the 3D printed battery was fabricated and achieved a rated capacity of 6.6 mAH. However, given the voltage potential of approximately 0.9 V, the 3D printed battery has high internal resistance. Furthermore, issues with the electrolysis of the solution hindered the performance of the 3D printed battery