Energy Storage

More and more giant corporations are buying into printed electrics by acquiring companies partly or wholly in the field.

This week, Printed Electronics World visited Mr Etsuo Nakagawa and Mr Kiichiro Ito of JNC Corporation (parent company Chisso) in Japan. JNC Corporation manufactures worldwide and that includes structural plastics and Li-ion battery materials for electric vehicles. In printed electronics, it is about to sell RFID inlays with a secret new antenna deposition process on plastic film.

Old electric vehicle reports are useless: the subject is moving too fast. IDTechEx is the only analyst with 18 current reports forecasting sales of electric vehicles and their key components and they are kept up to date. Information is fed into these documents continuously as the PhD level IDTechEx analysts tour the world's companies, research institutes and conferences to spot the many changes in technology and business success and interpret them.

Toyota's established nationwide battery recycling system collects end-of-life Nickel metal hydride batteries safely from the market and makes sustainable use of limited resources possible.

The conference speakers were surprisingly blunt in their appraisal of batteries and motors for electric vehicles at last week's EV Japan conference. Batteries control the cost of pure electric vehicles by a big margin and they are the largest part of the cost of hybrids, though a lesser percentage.

You have to listen to the world leader in electric vehicles, Toyota, because it pulled even further ahead of number two in the last year. Its hybrid car sales nearly doubled to about 1.32 units in 2011, more than all other hybrid cars put together.

A team of researchers at the University of Cambridge led by Professor Arokia Nathan are working on harvesting energy from light to power an OLED display in a step towards energy harvesting for smartphones.

We have entered 2012 with an electric vehicle scene that is very different from that which was envisaged not long ago. There are now six key enabling technologies not three and vehicle makers increasingly make some of them, so suppliers increasingly have to compete with their largest potential customers. Precious metals in EV components are being removed remarkably rapidly.

OLED versus LED lighting, the energy storage gold rush, replacing ITO and more.

Of course, as markets mature, one can make excellent enduring profits as a niche player, not just as volume leader such as those Chinese e-bikes and scooters on display at very affordable prices of around Euros 1000 upwards but are those cheaper batteries safe?

BASF has invested $50 million to acquire an equity ownership position in Sion Power, developers of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, based in Tucson, Arizona.

At Eco Products 2011 in Tokyo, Sony demonstrated a battery which runs on shredded paper and produces water as waste.

Computer giant Apple recently applied for patents for hydrogen batteries, which may make lighter batteries that are more energy efficient and therefore last longer perhaps for weeks at a time.

Imagine a cellphone battery that stayed charged for more than a week and recharged in just 15 minutes. That dream battery could be closer to reality thanks to Northwestern University research.

Harvard biologist and engineer Peter Girguis presented his research on a living battery at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean which is fueled by microbes that live near hydrothermal vents.

The annual printed electronics award winners were announced at the IDTechEx Awards Dinner in Santa Clara, California. The awards recognize outstanding progress in the development and commercialization of printed electronics, an industry that produces a huge amount of technical innovation which will be used in many products.

The PolyPlus lithium battery uses ordinary seawater or air interacting with lithium to deliver unprecedented energy density levels.

Energy harvesting comes to the fore with electric vehicles because the price they pay for being environmental and exhibiting many performance advantages is that they have limited energy available.