Energy Storage

IDTechEx are hosting a free webinar on Monday 26 January 2015 discussing the progress surrounding supercapacitor penetration.

IDTechEx analyst Franco Gonzalez discusses some of the trends with Electric Vehicles and Energy Storage.

Scientists are reporting a breakthrough in using very small technology to extend the battery life of some electronic devices.

Supercapacitor sales are mostly about automotive, with Chinese buses being the main destination of Ioxus and Maxwell supercapacitors and Japanese cars the main users of Nippon ChemiCon supercapacitors. French cars are the main users of Batscap supercapacitors and so on. IDTechEx analysts regularly visit many supercapacitor and lithium-ion capacitor (supercabattery) manufacturers and users in Japan the center of the global EV industry, with Toyota the leader by a large margin. Here are some of the findings.

New, lighter batteries are under development for soldiers now, in-house, at the Army Research Laboratory.

An ultra-thin nanomaterial is at the heart of a major breakthrough by scientists who are in a global race to invent a cheaper, lighter and more powerful rechargeable battery for electric vehicles.

Researchers have developed a new type of aluminium-air battery rechargeable by refilling salty or normal water and having a modified structure which ensures longer battery lifetime.

Chemists and materials scientists have developed a type of glass that can be used as an electrode material in lithium-ion batteries - likely making a vast improvement in these batteries' capacity and energy density.

In the last three years, we have seen several companies showcasing ultrathin glass at tradeshows around the world. These glass substrates are so thin that they can be bent and rolled almost like a plastic film. But despite the fanfare surrounding the technical prowess, the future of flexible glass remains uncertain.

In a promising lithium-based battery, the formation of a highly conductive silver matrix transforms a material otherwise plagued by low conductivity.

As it is in automotive, supercapacitors will be providing reliable and cost effective high power for critical applications such as data centers and hospitals. These are the so called UPS (uninterruptable power supply) systems. This article explains why.

A revolution is slicing through the car industry.

In 2025 over $25 billion will be spent on formulations and intermediate materials for wearable technology, as forecast by analysts IDTechEx in the brand new report Wearable Technology Materials 2015-2025.

A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Azerbaijan Investment Company OSJC, Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park LLC , and SouthWest NanoTechnologies, Inc. to begin long-term cooperation on a major carbon nanotube production facility.

Researchers are the first to measure the optical and electrical transport properties of the individual nanoflakes that make up a battery's electrode while it is being charged.

Researchers have reduced the problem of sudden death in lithium air batteries through the addition of water, increasing their energy storage capacity by five times.

Malaysia's first indigenous Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicle was launched by Education Minister II Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh at The National University of Malaysia.

Recently, the good news has been the continued strong growth of the market for hybrid cars, buses and outdoor forklifts, premium-priced pure electric cars and pure electric vehicles of many other types from the newly popular electric motorcycles to mobile cranes, mobility vehicles for the disabled and microEVs. On the negative side, the oversupplied e-bike/ e-scooter business remained almost entirely loss-making Chinese suppliers of the Chinese market where growth eased and companies left the business. Mainstream pure electric cars remained a failure due to up-front price too high, resale price too low (those short-lived batteries) and range too short. The term "structural electronics" is little known despite being used for several years, notably in terms of specifics such as "structural sensors" and "structural batteries". Google has tens of millions of items on the subject and, more importantly, in 2014, it started to be realised that this is to be something big.

Whilst the industry has reduced its growth in comparison to the previous years (from an estimated 30% in 2014 vs 2013 to 15% in 2014 vs 2013), IDTechEx believes that this is just a temporary stagnation. Indeed, the fact that other companies are investing in manufacturing capacity and challenging the leadership of Maxwell Technologies is a positive sign for the industry and a good signal for the supercapacitor market, which by definition needs more than one major player. We believe that more manufacturer options across the globe will provide the required alternative supply that end user industries are requiring in order to warranty market competition. This article gives an overview of the major events and developments in 2014 and gives the IDTechEx outlook for 2015.

Teijin Limited has announced that it will open the second production line for LIELSORT®, an innovative separator for lithium ion secondary batteries.