ENERGY SOLUTIONS
Combining energy harvesting and storage on thin film
The proliferation of low-power electronics and devices underscores a persistent issue: ensuring a consistent and sustainable power supply, particularly in low-light conditions. As the demand for flexible, lightweight and eco-friendly components grows, innovations that push the boundaries of technology and sustainability become essential, says Roelof Koopmans, Vice President Business Development of Dracula Technologies.
Dracula Technologies has developed a unique technology that combines energy harvesting and electrical storage on a single inkjet-printed thin film. This transformative innovation, named LAYERVault, is the result of more than a decade of research and development, supported by multi-million euro investments and grants from the EU, French innovation funds, a US-based chip manufacturer and financial institutions. The product is manufactured without using toxic organic materials or reliance on rare earth elements. While other companies produce OPV technology, no other company in the world has successfully combined both storage and harvesting on a single film. This advance enables low-power electronic
Dracula Technologies’ advance enables low-power electronic devices to operate without the need for bulky supercapacitors, making them thinner, flexible and suitable for any type of integration. Images: Dracula Technologies
LAYERVault is manufactured without toxic organic materials or reliance on rare earth elements.
devices to operate without the need for bulky supercapacitors, making them thinner, flexible and suitable for any type of integration. Dracula Technologies’ LAYERVault represents a significant breakthrough in energy harvesting and storage, addressing the critical challenge of powering low-power electronics and enabling autonomous, battery-free devices. It paves the way for applications such as flexible label tags that can operate independently, transmitting sensor and location data over wireless networks. The highly sensitive organic PV layer ensures continuous operation of sensors and devices even in low-light conditions, effectively eliminating the need for traditional batteries.
Technical advancements and characteristics Flexible Design: Utilising low-cost inkjet-printed cells, Dracula Technologies’ organic PV cells move beyond the constraints of traditional rigid designs. This flexibility opens a plethora of possibilities for incorporating renewable energy solutions into various IoT applications, including smart buildings, smart homes and asset tracking.
Setting a new standard: As the world’s first combination of low-light OPV energy harvesting and electrical storage on a single, flexible film, LAYERVault sets a new industry benchmark. It excels in low-light conditions, offering superior performance, versatility and extended longevity.
Sustainability: Constructed entirely from polymers and carbon-based compounds, the product is an eco-friendly solution with a minimal carbon footprint. A recent life cycle analysis revealed that it reduces CO2 emissions by 60% compared to conventional AA batteries used to power a remote control.
Extended autonomy: Once charged, the harvester/storage combo can function autonomously for several days, even in complete darkness, thanks to its integrated storage system. This capability transforms the operation of connected devices with low energy consumption, eliminating the need for battery maintenance and disposal.
Wireless communications: Many IoT solutions rely on wireless communications, specifically low-power protocols like LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, BLE and Zigbee. Once sensors are wireless, it is preferable that they are also battery-less in order to become entirely autonomous, hence maintenance-free.
A leap forward in driving sustainability
Dracula Technologies’ integration of organic PV with printed batteries marks a significant leap forward in driving sustainability within the electronics industry. By combining energy harvesting and storage on a single flexible substrate, this innovation provides low-power devices with virtually unlimited autonomy, eliminating the need for traditional batteries, supercapacitors and other storage components in favor of more sustainable alternatives. This advancement is particularly crucial for applications in supply chain logistics, building automation and various industrial environments. This technology enables a range of real-world applications, such as labels that transmit tracking and sensor data to cloudbased systems, which are essential for monitoring pallets, boxes, crates and other transport assets in logistics. Additionally, in building environments, assets can be easily located using slap-on tags attached to items like IT equipment, machinery, medical devices and office supplies. These low-cost labels, capable of communicating with backend systems, represent a highly sought-after solution for many applications. One notable application of this innovation is PV-tag, a wearable tag equipped with a temperature sensor. This showcases the versatility of the solution, proving useful in asset management, package tracking and environmental temperature monitoring. Utilising Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the PV-tag transmits data at predetermined intervals, ensuring reliable power for extended operations, even in low-light conditions.
Facilitating environmentally friendly products The game-changing innovation by Dracula Technologies to combine inkjet-printed organic PV with electrical storage on two sides of a single thin-film substrate represents a significant advancement in the area of electronic device power supply. By combining energy harvesting and storage on a single flexible film, it allows entire new applications by eliminating both batteries and supercapacitors from low-power devices such as IoT sensors and trackers. Moreover, the products are environmentally friendly. This groundbreaking technology not only addresses key challenges within the organic and printed electronics market but also aligns with its rapid growth. As the international market for these technologies expands, LAYERVault is paving the way for a more sustainable and innovative future in lowpower electronics.
THE AUTHOR Roelof Koopmans has over 25 years of experience in founding and leading start-ups in the IT and IoT sectors. In 2000, he co-founded and served as CEO of Aspectra, a data centre hosting provider based in Zürich. He then served as General Manager at MOJIX, a provider of RFID tracking solutions. From 2018 to 2023, Koopmans was Senior Director of the LoRaSI partner business at Semtech. In early 2023, he joined Dracula Technologies as Vice President of Business Development, focusing on the expansion of their energy harvesting business. Koopmans holds an MSc from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and lives in Switzerland. THE COMPANY Dracula Technologies, headquartered in Valence, France, currently has 35 employees and pioneers sustainable energy solutions with its LAYER technology, revolutionising power sources for low-power electronics. Its organic photovoltaic (OPV) modules, manufactured using patented digital printing, harvest ambient light, eliminating reliance on traditional batteries. With a commitment to clean, renewable energy, Dracula Technologies leads the charge towards a greener future by providing long-lasting and cost-effective energy solutions. Supporting its mission is its new “Green Micropower Factory,” a state-of-theart, fully automated facility, the largest of its kind in the world, with a capacity of up to 150 million cm² of printed OPV devices per year. www.dracula-technologies.com