A battery that can bend or roll was demonstrated in a 2011 research report—but the work was a laboratory-stage lithium rechargeable battery, not an announcement of a product for sale. Its flexible graphene-paper electrode was associated with qualitative improvements in energy density, power density and cycle life over a conventional, non-flexible electrode architecture. The reviewed abstract gives no numerical results, so it cannot support a percentage comparison or a claim about today’s commercial batteries.
What the researchers built
In “Flexible energy storage devices based on graphene paper,” published in Energy & Environmental Science and first published on 25 February 2011, Hyeokjo Gwon and co-authors described a lithium rechargeable battery using a free-standing graphene-paper electrode. The authors said the graphene paper served both as a conducting agent and as a current collector. Royal Society of Chemistry article and abstract.
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Contemporaneous coverage described the prototype as having a vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅) cathode grown on graphene paper by pulsed laser deposition, and an anode made from graphene paper coated in lithium. The report said the resulting battery could be twisted or rolled. Chemistry World’s 25 February 2011 report.
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The authors reported improved energy density, power density and life-cycle performance compared with a conventional non-flexible electrode architecture. The abstract states the direction of the claimed improvement, but does not provide numerical values, test conditions or a quantified comparison. It therefore supports describing the result as a promising research-stage advance, not claiming a specific performance gain or that the flexible design outperformed commercial batteries in real-world use.
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The distinction matters: the comparison was between electrode architectures, not a complete product-level assessment covering packaging, safety, cost, manufacturing scale or performance in consumer devices. The contemporaneous report also quoted corresponding author Kisuk Kang describing the results as promising and expressing interest in improving performance and long-term stability, potentially through a solid-state or polymer electrolyte. Those were statements about work in progress in 2011, not evidence of its present status.
Can a battery bend or roll?
This report shows that researchers had made a lithium rechargeable battery design capable of being twisted or rolled in 2011. It does not establish that every battery can safely flex, or that this particular design is now commercially available. The Royal Society of Chemistry abstract and the contemporaneous coverage do not verify whether this specific battery was later commercialized or what became of the design.
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What the evidence does—and does not—establish
- Established: The published design used graphene paper as a flexible electrode and current collector; contemporaneous reporting described the V₂O₅ cathode and lithium-coated anode.
- Reported, without a numerical comparison in the reviewed abstract: Better energy density, power density and life-cycle performance than a conventional non-flexible electrode architecture.
- Not established by these sources: A quantified improvement, current retail availability, or the later commercial history of this particular design.
The paper’s abstract introduced the work as “a new approach to flexible energy devices.” Read in context, that is a description of a research contribution published in 2011—not a claim that flexible batteries had reached ordinary consumer use.
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