Energy Storage

A sliver of wood coated with tin could make a tiny, long-lasting, efficient and environmentally friendly battery.

3D printing can now be used to print lithium-ion microbatteries the size of a grain of sand.

Flexible portable electronics, in order to retain their versatility would benefit from harvesters and batteries or supercapacitors on plastic substrates.

In 2013 the market size for gold ink for electronic and electrical applications is less than $1 million - used mainly for academic work and some early stage work in healthcare products. However, a new report from IDTechEx Research titled New Opportunities for Gold: Conductive Inks for the Electronics Industry 2013-2019 finds that with demand from medical applications, edge connectors and interfaces with organic materials such as sensors the market will growth to $50 million in 2018, in the "most likely" scenario.

Researchers at Rice University have come up with a new way to boost the efficiency of the ubiquitous lithium ion (LI) battery by employing ribbons of graphene that start as carbon nanotubes.

Questions arise as to how much supercapacitors can improve if organisations more like NASA took over. After all, if supercapacitors can replace many batteries when, as today, they store one tenth of their energy, what will happen in the marketplace if they approach the theoretical ten times the lithium-ion battery figure while acting as a near-perfect "battery"?

After 10,000 complete charging and discharging cycles with a complete charge and discharge cycle per hour (2 C), the lithium batteries still have more than 85 % of the initial capacity.

2008 to 2010 saw huge enthusiasm and interest in the development of small energy harvesters.

Scientists have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today's electronics.

Three years ago, the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC) was asked to demonstrate the durability of lead-carbon batteries in the high-rate, partial state-of-charge operation of a hybrid electric vehicle.

In a quest for a smaller, more self-sustaining solar power source, an electrical engineer has proposed a design for solar panels that can simultaneously generate power from sunlight and store power reserves for later, all within a single device.

Elbit System is an international defense electronics company. They have diversified into energy storage technology through a comprehensive supercapacitor research program. They are focusing on aqueous electrolyte based supercapacitors, which are safer but with lower performance than organic electrolyte based supercapacitors. However based on improvements in electrode materials (such as carbon nanotubes) they are closing the performance gap. They are a company with high-level research capabilities.

Maxwell Technologies tells us that they have just had their best quarter ever. They have now delivered over 600,000 Ultracapacitors for micro-hybrids - conventional vehicles that switch off the engine whenever they stop and start it again when the accelerator is depressed.

Stanford University scientists have created an advanced zinc-air battery with higher catalytic activity and durability than similar batteries made with platinum and other costly catalysts.

Efficient energy storage is a cornerstone for a resilient and reliable energy transmission grid and graphene is a key element of the clean energy system.

Dr Bor Jang founded the company in 2007 and prior to this he had started Nanotek Instruments in 2002. Dr Bor Jang is a well-known figure in the field of graphene and claims to be the first to file patents on the material. Angstron Materials produces graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide powdres. Angstron Materials currently has a 20 tonne per year production capacity (by powdre weight). Their production technique is based on oxidization-reduction. Indeed, they sell both graphene oxide and graphene powdres. Recently, they have started moving up the value chain and are developing silicon anode materials for Li-ion batteries. This is because, as Mr Beech puts it, no one is going to get rich from supplying graphene alone.

Graphene has already come a long way towards commercialisation, despite its short history. But really hard questions still remain about what comes next and how to grow revenues.

Eesha Khare, 18, of Saratoga, California, recognized the crucial need for energy-efficient storage devices.

IDTechEx has recently launched an online browser-based Market Intelligence Portal , bringing you in-depth market intelligence and independent analysis throughout the year.

The day is coming when electric vehicles (EVs) land, water and airborne are as much as 80% electronics and electrics if we include the power components.