Whitepaper
1 When Is A Printed Battery Better Than A Coin Cell?
Coin (button) cells have become the default energy source for compact electronics. Their dominance is the result of decades of production optimisation, vast production scale, and a mature supply chain, which have driven costs down to extremely competitive levels.
However, this scale also creates environmental challenges, and their underlying construction imposes performance constraints as devices continue to shrink.
Internal resistance and size limitations
The problem for coin cells is that as they shrink in size their internal resistance (measured in ohms) increases, which leads to the output voltage dropping excessively when pulse currents are drawn (per ohm’s law). In practice, this limits how small the coin cell can be to drive a particular application – such as wireless communications.
How printed batteries address these constraints
Printed batteries fundamentally change the geometry and manufacturing approach, addressing both electrical and environmental limitations.
1.Planar architecture and reduced internal resistance
Printed batteries spread the chemistry over a larger surface area, allowing better control over current distribution and achieving lower internal resistance. Thanks to Zinergy’s unique designs, we have the lowest internal resistance and greatest ability to provide high peak currents – exceeding those of coin cells.
2. Additive manufacturing and material efficiency
Manufacturing batteries using printing technology allows ultra-thin batteries to be created with lower environmental impact – replacing metal casings with plastic films less than 2 thousandths of an inch thick (about the thickness of finest human hair). Batteries can be designed to provide only the energy required for a given application, minimising waste and environmental impact.
Sustainability and recyclability
Zinergy batteries use zinc-manganese dioxide chemistry which contains no lithium, mercury or solvents, eliminating the impact of these toxic materials.
Zinc-carbon coin cells and batteries are already highly recyclable, with laboratory processes recovering up to 99% of zinc and manganese and industrial processes typically achieving 75% to 90% recovery of zinc-carbon batteries by weight. Replacing the steel casings and separators used in coin cells reduces the cost and complexity of recycling, encouraging recycling as opposed to disposal.
Form factor advantage: Thinness and flexibility
Beyond electrical performance, printed batteries introduce key mechanical advantages: thinness and flexibility.
Typical characteristics include:
- Sub-millimetre thickness
- Bend tolerance across thousands of cycles
- Stable operation under mechanical deformation
This enables integration into non-planar and space-constrained systems that are not addressable with rigid coin cells.
Manufacturing compatibility with printed electronics
Printed battery fabrication aligns with roll-to-roll manufacturing processes used in printed electronics, creating a pathway toward fully integrated systems:
- Printed conductors and passive components
- Printed active components, bare-dies or chip-scale-package integrated circuits
- Integrated energy storage (battery layer)
This convergence supports high-throughput, low-cost and low environmental-impact production of complete electronic systems without traditional PCB and component assembly.
2 Application Space
Printed batteries are particularly advantageous where one or more of the following are substantive design goals:
- Form factor: ultra-thin or conformal geometries
- Mechanical compliance: bendable or flexible systems
- Power profile: intermittent high peak currents
- Sustainability: reduced material usage and improved recyclability
Representative applications include:
- Conformal wearable health monitors
- Smart labels for asset tracking and authentication
- Distributed wireless sensors (e.g. perishable goods monitoring)
- Temperature logging for cold-chain pharmaceuticals
3 Conclusions
Coin cells remain a cost-effective and well-understood solution for many applications, but their performance is fundamentally constrained by their geometry and construction—particularly as devices scale down.
Printed batteries offer a complementary solution, delivering:
- Lower internal resistance in thin formats
- Higher peak current capability
- Mechanical flexibility
- Improved environmental profile
- Compatibility with roll-to-roll system-level manufacturing
For next-generation electronics where thickness, flexibility, and sustainability are key drivers, printed batteries represent a compelling alternative to conventional coin cell architectures.
