Research Articles

The key to wider adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) will be lower-cost models with a more approachable price point. The most expensive component of an EV is the battery pack. As well as increasing the energy density and reducing the cost of the battery cells, another avenue to cost reduction is through more efficient packaging of the cells.

The gas sensor market is a diverse sector that incorporates a variety of core gas sensing technologies and emerging technologies for indoor and outdoor air quality monitoring. IDTechEx expects environmental applications of gas sensors to see the most growth going forward, as there is a need for measuring gases from a wider array of sources than ever before.

The rise of co-packaged optics is transforming modern data centers and high-performance networks by addressing critical challenges such as bandwidth density, energy efficiency, and scalability. CPO enhances interconnect bandwidth and energy efficiency by integrating optics and electronics within a single package, significantly shortening electrical link lengths.

Lithium is the lightest and smallest alkali metal in the periodic table and possesses a high electrochemical potential. These attributes make it attractive for use in batteries, as it can provide a high energy density per unit weight, with few viable substitutes. While lithium finds diverse applications in glass ceramics, lubricating greases, air treatment, and pharmaceuticals, batteries dominate its end-use segment.

On a global level, the decarbonization of heat energy methods is needed more and more as heating and cooling accounts for around 50% of energy consumption, with 30% being from industrial heating. 90% of these industrial heating processes include the use of fossil fuels, which leads to high global emissions from industrial processes alone. To meet net zero targets, things need to change.

Helium is a finite resource that plays a critical role across several industries including medical imaging, thermal management systems for batteries, aerospace engineering, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, semiconductor manufacturing, fiber optics, particle physics, scientific balloons, and many more.

Thursday 12 September 2024 - How Is Critical Material Recovery Unlocking a Multi-Billion Dollar Market? Introduction to critical materials and key application markets; Critical material sources and why secondary material streams are rapidly emerging; Critical material recovery technology trends and their application in secondary sources; Valuable lessons to learn from established critical platinum group metal and semiconductor recovery; IDTechEx's outlook and conclusions on emerging critical material recovery markets and key growth opportunities.

The brain computer interface market represents an array of technologies which can decode neural signals, or in other words, read minds. Electrodes or sensors can be placed either on the surface of the head, within the skull, or even within the brain itself to record brain activity. This data can then be used for cursor and keyboard control, speech decoding, and even exo-skeletons. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the quality of life for people living with spinal cord injury, quadriplegia, and other motor and speech function impairments.

Multiple consumer electronics giants, including Apple, Samsung, and Nokia, have previously shown interest in flexible smartphones. Indeed, it naturally seems like the next step after foldable and curved smartphones have seen development and commercialization in the last decade. However, the path to fully flexible smartphones is far from simple, and the reward for successful development is ambiguous.

Sodium-ion batteries bring new opportunities for lower costs, greater sustainability, and safety into the battery market. With sodium being more widely available than lithium, concerns about energy security and supply-chain shortages can hopefully start to decrease for economies.

Autonomous buses represent one of the most challenging platforms in the autonomous driving industry. In recent years, commercial interest has shifted towards roboshuttles and robotaxis, partly due to the complex operational design domains (ODD) of autonomous buses.

End-of-life equipment from automotives, electric vehicles, e-waste and decarbonized energy technologies are rapidly emerging secondary raw material sources for valuable critical materials. A new report from IDTechEx forecasts that US$110B of critical materials will be recovered annually from secondary sources by 2045, with a combined weight of over 3.3 million tonnes.