Energy Storage

Biomimetics - usefully copying nature - is alive and well.

This article is the first of our series on Advanced and Post Lithium-ion technologies.

New findings have overturned a scientific dogma that stood for decades, by showing that potassium can work with graphite in a potassium-ion battery - a discovery that could pose a challenge and sustainable alternative to the widely-used lithium-ion battery.

Today's emerging technologies are varied, vast - and moving at the blink of an eye. Here are the top 10 key trends we'll see at the show that are changing the way the world lives, works and plays.

Today's growing need for energy storage drives the requirement for a radical change in battery design and production.

The graphene industry is at a critical juncture for many small to medium sized companies: it is time for them to generate revenues and pre-empt any pending cash flow issues. These companies cannot often afford to take the long view, which many research groups and government are rightly taking.

Sun and wind are important sources of renewable energy, but they suffer from natural fluctuations: In stormy weather or bright sunshine electricity produced exceeds demand, whereas clouds or a lull in the wind inevitably cause a power shortage.

Tyndall National Institute, in remote Cork in the Republic of Ireland, is at the heart of a cluster of excellence on low power energy harvesting.

Samsung SDI this week unveiled Samsung's Stripe and Band batteries. The batteries are an embodiment of the age of wearable batteries that are applicable to any curve of a human body.

Thin Film Solid State Batteries have game-changing applications in electronics, robotics, industry, medical devices and the military.

Energy storage has long been the most critical challenge for electric vehicles or hybrid electric vehicles. There is a new trend of using supercapacitors to complement or even replace batteries as energy storage devices to improve the vehicles' performance.

Graphene finds users in California (Our most exciting graphene conference so far).

Sinode systems was founded in 2012 as a spin out from Northwestern University. The company has developed a silicon-graphene composite material for lithium-ion batteries and it is the exclusive licensee of the patents held by Northwestern University.

High power energy harvesting (HPEH) is the clean part of off-grid renewable energy and its main potential lies at kilowatts to megawatts. Few things are genuinely new in this world but newly important aspects of energy harvesting really matter.

Thought leaders IDTechEx were among the first to identify three new megatrends in the world of technology: Structural Electronics (SE); 3D Printed Electronics (3DPE); Energy Independent Electric Vehicles (EIVs).

IDTechEx are hosting a free webinar on Tuesday 27 October 2015.

Micro-supercapacitors are a promising alternative to micro-batteries because of their high power and long lifetime. They have been in development for about a decade but until now they have stored considerably less energy than micro-batteries, which has limited their application.

Formula One racing gave us the disk brake and more recently led to 60,000 rpm energy harvesting flywheels on London Buses. No one planned to make a London bus look like a Formula One racing car but the bus people saw their future in racing technology.

Whilst existing battery technologies such as lead acid and lithium-ion batteries will dominate the battery market in the following 10 years, advanced and post lithium-ion batteries given the right conditions can potentially take a considerable dent of about 10% of whole battery market by 2026.

Can portabello mushrooms stop cell phone batteries from degrading over time?