3D Printed Batteries: The Free Shape That Fills Dead Spaces in Devices
The promise can be summed up in one sentence: a battery that takes on any shape, molded to fill the empty spaces inside a device instead of forcing the device to accommodate a cylinder or a rigid pouch. This is at the heart of additive manufacturing applied to cells, central to an article from the Wall Street Journal and a broader technical coverage that has followed the first companies taking it out of the lab in recent months.
The strong point is that the technique is indifferent to chemistry: it works with lithium-ion, sodium-ion, and solid-state cells without depending on the internal composition.
The nearest applications are not in the consumer field, where cost and industrial scale remain constraints, but in defense and aerospace, where the limitations are less prohibitive.
Material Hybrid Manufacturing, From F1 to Drones
Among the most active startups in this field is Material Hybrid Manufacturing, founded between Miami and Texas by Gabe Elias, a former Mercedes-AMG engineer in Formula 1, Christopher Reyes, a PhD in chemistry from Duke, and Miles Dotson. Its HYBRID3D platform combines direct ink printing and fused deposition modeling, printing the anode, cathode, separator, and casing in a single process, without molds or dedicated tools. In a drone test, in the same volume occupied by 48 cylindrical cells, the printed cell achieved a +50% energy density utilizing 35% more of the available space, as reported by IEEE Spectrum.
The company has raised $7.1 million in a seed round co-led by Outlander VC and Harpoon Ventures, with GoAhead Ventures, Myelin VC, Demos Capital, and Giant Step Capital, after going through the hardware accelerator HAX. This is supplemented by a Phase II SBIR contract worth $1.25 million with the US Air Force, lasting 18 months, to integrate the technology into Class I UAVs, and a partnership with Performance Drone Works to push towards commercialization. On the first commercial printing bed, measuring 550 by 350 millimeters, Material claims to have already tested chemistries such as NMC 811, NMC 111, LFP, and lithium-titanium oxide.
Elias recounts having attempted at Mercedes to wrap conventional cells around the driver's seat, only to give up: "We ended up stopping the project after banging our heads against the wall, because it is extremely complicated to take those small cylindrical cells, fit them into the spaces, and connect them in the configuration you want." The initial idea of applying printing to large electric vehicles has also been shelved: a vehicle like those from Rivian has no space problems for batteries, whereas small devices full of voids do.
Sakuu and the Wave of Research
On the cost side, there is Sakuu, a California startup we discussed some time ago, which is developing an additive process capable of eliminating solvents in the production of battery layers. This would render superfluous the long ovens that today dry those layers in traditional lines, one of the reasons why batteries for electric cars remain expensive.
Arwed Niestroj, COO of the company, a nuclear physicist and former head of research and development at Mercedes-Benz in North America, is working on commercialization with a major unnamed battery manufacturer.
That the moment is one of acceleration is also suggested by the volume of academic work: according to Digital Trends, around 25,000 papers on 3D printed batteries and their components were published in 2025. For now, the concrete path goes through the small volumes and high margins of defense, where the freedom of shape is worth more than the price. The leap towards electric cars and consumer electronics, where cost per kilowatt-hour is paramount, remains the crucial test yet to be overcome.