Research Articles

Thursday 25 March 2021 - By 2026, demand for sustainable aviation fuels could reach over 3.5 billion litres. This webinar will introduce key areas including: Renewable diesel growth; Sustainable aviation fuel; and Electro-fuel production technologies and players

Additively manufactured electronics is an emerging approach that takes printed electronics into the third dimension. IDTechEx divides the sector into two aspects: 'fully additive' and 'printing onto 3D surfaces'. Both have multiple application opportunities that IDTechEx believes will develop over the next decade.

Thursday 18 March 2021 - New Opportunities Emerge for the Aerogel Market. The status of the silica aerogel market; Overview of key manufacturers capacity and product benchmarking; Assessment on the rise of Chinese manufacturers; Patent developments; and much more.

Conductive inks are a long-established technology, however, technology rarely stands still, and there is extensive innovation within the conductive ink space. Particle-free inks are an especially promising example with multiple advantages and applications.

The smart surfaces essential to 6G communications will be over $7 billion in 2034 - find out more in the upcoming webinar Thursday 1 April 2021.

Today, antimicrobial technologies are used around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Surfaces and products protected by antimicrobial technology can continuously inactivate and kill harmful microorganisms such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In this article, IDTechEx highlights three innovative start-ups that are developing next-generation antimicrobial technologies.

Thermal management is one of the most important topics in a wide range of applications; from electric vehicle battery packs through to consumer electronics, there is a pressing need to dissipate heat efficiently. Thermal interface materials (TIM) come in numerous types and play a crucial role in the thermal transfer from a heat source. This article looks at what the major innovations are for these materials and why those developments are significant.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies are likely to play a key role in the fight against climate change, with the UN estimating that CCUS could mitigate between 1.5 and 6.3 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalents per year by 2050. The world has already taken its steps along this pathway, however, for CCUS to have a meaningful impact on emissions in a timely manner, it will need to scale up hundreds of times compared with today's levels.

In February 2021, The US agency DARPA awarded contracts to Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation and Martin Defense Group (formerly Navatek) to build demonstration versions of the new Manta Ray unmanned underwater vehicle with an energy-harvesting system to power it indefinitely, allowing the robot submarine to carry out missions lasting months or years without returning to base or refueling.

Wednesday 10 March 2021 - What are the key antimicrobial technologies on the market today?; How do they work? Mechanisms of action for key antimicrobial technologies; Innovations in antimicrobial technologies - what are companies developing?; and more.

Thursday 4 March 2021 - Summary of the current electric light commercial vehicle, electric medium and heavy-duty truck, and electric bus markets, and IDTechEx's outlook for these sectors; The role for battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid, and fuel cell electric vehicles; and more.

The aerogel market is forecast to exceed $700m within the next decade. This may appear modest for a unique material family that has been known for nearly a century, but after long periods of stagnation and several market failings this would represent a significant growth from the market status in 2020. This article will look at what will be driving this growth.

Drone sensors are critical to wider drone adoption. IDTechEx forecast that the market for drone sensors will be greater than $2.9Bn by 2031, according to their recent market research report "Drone Market and Industries: 2021-2041"

Investment and development in haptics is accelerating, and the supply chain providing the actuators, drivers and software behind these key components is evolving at a faster pace every year. IDTechEx's latest report on haptics, "Haptics 2021-2031: Technologies, Market & Players", predicts that the industry will be worth nearly $5bn in 2025.

Companies are successfully innovating as an old technology pivots quickly to tackling a global problem.

Among the Li-ion batteries competitors, the Redox Flow Battery (RFB) system is one of the main competitors currently approaching the market.

Why sustainable diesel when electric vehicles will dominate the market? How sustainable are such 'sustainable fuels' really? What are the emerging technologies in this space? Senior Technology Analyst Dr Alex Holland joins Raghu Das, CEO of IDTechEx to discuss the new IDTechEx report "Sustainable Alternative Fuels 2021-2031"

IDTechEx expects electric motorcycle sales in Europe to grow at least 50% year-on-year in 2020, building on the momentum of recent years.

Growth in global energy consumption has caused CO2 and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to rise, in turn causing an increase in average global temperatures. The combustion of fossil fuels including coal, oil, and natural gas, has been a key driver behind this, providing the underlying driver for the production and use of non-fossil alternative fuels that can help reduce emissions.

Phone systems change every ten years. 5G communications is now rolling out worldwide. It is time to plan 6G communications for 2030! Although little is decided - not even the frequency - much can be said about the extremely ambitious 6G objectives and challenges. This article gives the IDTechEx appraisal of 6G communications 2021-2041.

Thursday 25 February 2021 - Solar cars and boats are now mainstream, some never plugging in. The technology of the most advanced ones is being licensed to others, a robot shuttle being next up.

Printed/flexible sensors offer multiple benefits relative to their more established rigid counterparts, including lower weight, flexibility/conformality, and potentially lower manufacturing costs since printing facilitates high-throughput continuous production methods. In this article IDTechEx identifies top five innovative printed/flexible sensor technologies along with their associated applications.

Like the Beatles in the 60s, Tesla has arguably achieved the feat of being simultaneously the best and most popular at what they do. As the IDTechEx report "Electric Vehicles: Land, Sea & Air 2021-2041" discusses, Tesla enters a new market and quickly becomes the top-selling electric vehicle maker. In this article, we focus on Tesla's innovations in the field of power electronics and some of the new materials opportunities being created.

Given the exciting properties, graphene has always been linked as a revolutionary material for the electronics industry. CVD graphene is cited as the ideal solution in providing a perfect single layer produced in a low cost continuous R2R process, but the manufacturing and commercial reality have proved very different. After a long period of research, and with players regularly exiting and entering the field, we are only now starting to see this technology mature and the dawn of the commercial reality.

Exploring trends in the change of the cathode chemistry; EV cell energy density; reduction of battery pack materials weight; and strategies of EV auto makers.

By 2026, demand for sustainable aviation fuels could reach over 3.5 billion litres. Find out more in the brand new IDTechEx report, "Sustainable Alternative Fuels 2021-2031" - biofuels, renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuels, e-fuels, green ammonia, technologies, players, markets.

This video presentation shares some of the research from the new IDTechEx report "Solar Vehicles 2021-2041 2nd Edition". www.IDTechEx.com/Solar

COVID-19 is driving 3- and 4-digit growth for antimicrobial companies - this market has received significant attention from governments, industry, and even consumers over the past year (2020) due to the technology's potential to address transmission of COVID-19.

The WHO said in 2019 that over 70% of the world's population have access to clean water. Clean water is required by all and is a product that has a direct impact on the consumer. Many companies must meet targets and goals set by their country or industry body with water cleanliness and pollution monitoring. However, unlike the oil and gas industry, the water industry is behind with its uptake of digitization and in the monitoring of networks in many countries across the globe.

With more than 1TWh of battery capacity installed in the ten-year forecast and a market size of $56bn, the "Batteries for Stationary Energy Storage 2021-2031" report shows the fast-growing scale of this market, analyzing the main technologies involved in this energetic revolution.

3D printing offers an efficient method to improve current manufacturing limits across economic sectors such as transport, construction, and medical and dental industries allowing rapid prototyping and on-site production and repairs.

Brand new report available from IDTechEx - "Antimicrobial Technology Market 2021-2031" - antimicrobial additives and antimicrobial coatings provide continuous and residual antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal action

Thursday 11 February 2021 - More Cells, Less Pack: Materials for Electric Vehicle Batteries. This webinar covers An overview of materials used in battery cells and battery packs; Key OEM designs and how this could change; and The impact of the above on material demands and markets.

With sensors, the systems and software are a bigger business than the sensors themselves. For example, your body has primitive sensors such as eyes and fingers, but it processes the data in combination, so the whole is greater than the parts. Call it "sensor fusion", something increasingly seen in the automotive, healthcare, and robotic industries.

Thursday 18 February 2021 - Emerging 3rd and 4th generation emissive materials for OLED displays; A technological transition that increases the efficiency of organic photovoltaics; Functional inks for lighting; and Low temperature component attachment materials.

The remarkable price increases in particular US stocks, most notably GameStop, made the news last week as the power of retail investors to move markets became clear. On Monday 1st Feb, the BBC reported that silver prices increased by around 10 % as retail investors turned their attention to commodities, reaching a 5-month high of almost $950/kg.