Paper batteries: Swedish collaboration develops eco-friendly energy solution for connected packaging

17 Jul 2018 --- BillerudKorsnäs and a research team at Uppsala University have developed an eco-friendly and inexpensive paper battery with the commercial potential to facilitate advancements in connected packaging. The collaboration has taken basic research based on pure cellulose from algae and extended it to work with the same type of fiber that BillerudKorsnäs usually uses to manufacture packaging material. The long-term aim is to enable large-scale production and the future use of paper batteries for applications in areas such as smart packaging.

“The paper battery, in particular, the electrodes for the battery, is wood-based cellulose fibers coated with a conductive polymer enabling storage of charges,” Magnus Wikström, Chief Technology Officer at BillerudKorsnäs, tells PackagingInsights. “Combined with an enclosure and an electrolyte (for example salt water), this gives you the battery in its simplest form.”

Wikström believes that paper batteries have the potential to facilitate a more sustainable and cost-effective future for packaging as the industry continues to explore the possibilities of connectivity and IOT.

“Sustainable and low-cost (non-metallic, bio-based) batteries are an enabler of smart packaging solutions such as sensors or communication. Paper batteries have an important end-use in that they enable better control over when foodstuff expires, minimizing food waste, and they can also facilitate track and trace systems, enabling safer and better transports,” he says.

“Paper batteries can also power low-cost sensors which detect the opening of packages through a light sensor. This could be used both for preventing theft and enabling better quality control,” he adds.

Technology for large-scale production processes
The development work is being carried out by one of Sweden’s foremost research teams under Maria Strömme, collaborating with BillerudKorsnäs, as a leading company in the development of sustainable packaging technology, in a completely new form.

“What’s special in this case is the model for collaboration between BillerudKorsnäs and Uppsala University that has resulted in technology adapted to large-scale production processes. We’re combining the deep theoretical expertise of the researchers with our understanding of innovation and production technology. By successfully creating a joint platform, we can focus our work on the future, on creating an advanced product that can still be produced in an effective way,” says Lars Sandberg, Project Manager for Innovation at BillerudKorsnäs.

Smart, connected packaging
In the long term, the paper battery opens up possibilities for developing packaging that is both smart and more sustainable. Small paper batteries with sensors can in the future help create packaging that can be traced through the entire transport chain. This includes, for example, packaging that measures temperature or position in real time and provides information on what is happening with an item during transport.

A paper battery entails many new ways of using packaging and can thus offer exciting opportunities for the packaging industry and BillerudKorsnäs customers that wish to establish systems that safeguard quality and delivery reliability. For example, a light sensor along with a BillerudKorsnäs paper battery could provide information on where in the transport chain a product disappeared from its packaging.

With electrodes based on cellulose from wood fiber, the ambition is that in the future, it will be possible to recycle batteries along with their boxes and make them into new boxes or paper batteries.

“The paper battery is a key piece of the puzzle in efforts to produce smart packaging that requires small, sustainable power sources. By enabling this type of sustainable packaging, the work on the paper battery is fully in line with BillerudKorsnäs’ vision of challenging conventional packaging for a sustainable future. Storing energy in paper instead of in lithium batteries, for example, allows for bio-based batteries that can form part of a circular system, which provides major sustainability benefits,” says Wikström.

“BillerudKorsnäs and Uppsala University are now focusing the efforts on scaling up and enabling the first applications through product and application development,” he tells PackagingInsights.

“A key aspect of this is the successful collaboration between the skilled researchers at Uppsala University and BillerudKorsnäs is the shared material, market and production knowledge together with the focus on sustainability,” Wikström concludes.

By Joshua Poole