Research Articles

Some supercapacitors will become smart materials and be sold as feedstock by value added material companies such as Dow DuPont and Nitto Denko. Which companies and when is as yet uncertain. This is part of the emerging big picture for supercapacitors that will make even their materials a multi- billion dollar business.

IDTechEx recently visited Automatica 2018 in Munich. This is the largest biannual automation event in Europe. At this show IDTechEx focused on three trends: collaborative robotic arms, mobile robots, and various associated sensors. In this article, we provide a review of various company highlights.

The past 3 months has been busy for 3D bioprinting companies, with numerous publications emerging from academia and announcements from industry. This article will highlight the advancements made in 3D bioprinting in the last 3 months since the publication of the 2018 update of IDTechEx's market research report on the topic: 3D Bioprinting 2018 - 2028: Technologies, Markets, Forecasts.

Autonomous haul trucks in mining are here to stay with companies ramping up the roll out of retrofit fleets around the world, but what does this mean in the wider context of next generation mining equipment, with many projects from digital twin IoT solutions to predictive maintenance of equipment showing promise in the adoption of emerging technology. Separating the hype from reality is key in mining, an industry often risk averse to standalone investments and where standards and interoperability challenges typically need be addressed ahead of technology adoption.

In this article we report on the latest developments at SID 2018 concerning various components in flexible displays including thin film encapsulation, barrier films and adhesive, transparent conductive films and substrates

As society and equipment become more mobile and remote from grids, diesel and gas gensets will be bought in larger numbers for a few years yet - possibly peaking at around $30 billion global market size when over 600GW will be deployed. The Zero Genset market will rise to at least $100 billion if it replaces significant grid power.

This rapid growth is analysed and implications evaluated in the latest market intelligence report from IDTechEx Technology Analyst Dr Bryony Core: 3D Printing Software 2018-2028: Technology and Market Analysis.

Poor air quality is a growing threat to the public health. Knowing the information of the air quality will allow us to take appropriate actions to reduce the levels of air pollution at the right place and right time.

Following commercialisation in the 1990s, today 3D printing has established itself as an attractive manufacturing solution for prototyping and beyond. Materials suppliers are poised to capitalise on this unmet demand, with the 3D printing materials market to be worth $16B in 2028.

The $1.6 bn Swansea Bay tidal lagoon has been rejected by the UK government.

In IDTechEx Research's latest report Additive Manufacturing and Lightweight Materials for Aerospace and Defense 2018-2028, the focus is on advanced lightweight materials and the rise of additive manufacturing.

Fiber lasers: A versatile technology for lightweighting, battery manufacturing and LiDAR in the automotive industry. Recent advances in fiber laser welding are highly advantageous for lightweighting and battery manufacturing. Fiber lasers are reliable, compact and energy efficient systems that offer the best beam quality for applications where precision is important.

In this article, IDTechEx will describe the status of the commercialization of graphene and carbon nanotubes.

Supercapacitor materials are rapidly improving by new routes. The active materials are the dominant part of cost and the cause of limitations such as flammability, toxicity, cost, energy density and self- discharge. Currently the active electrodes almost always consist of bulk "hierarchical" carbon with a range of pore sizes, often made the old way from botanical materials.

In any emerging technology, the pace of innovation is rapid, sometimes dauntingly so. Patent Analytics is a service that IDTechEx provides utilising our long-standing expertise in a range of emerging technologies to provide clients of our services the answers they need.

The Voltera V-One is a PCB Printer for early circuit board prototyping and PE experimentation.

The transportation industry is renewing itself from within finds new IDTechEx Research report "Electric Trucks and Delivery Vans 2018-2028".

Tightening emissions regulations make diesel cars more expensive to make, so it is only a few years before pure electric cars will be cheaper to make. This was predicted ten years ago by IDTechEx to be around 2022 for small cars and that date is now confirmed by several car manufacturers.

The addressable market for any zero-emission electricity source goes beyond where electricity is used today. It extends to the much bigger potential markets for new uses for electricity and for replacing other forms of power used for cooking, heating and vehicles.

Conductive inks are a wonderfully adaptive technology. This characteristic has enabled them to stay relevant and to rejuvenate themselves over the past several decades. This is because as old markets have struggled or declined the technology has managed to find and/or create new uses. Several years ago, a new frontier called in-mold electronics (or IME) started to emerge. This frontier, as reported in the IDTechEx Research report Conductive Ink Markets 2018-2028: Forecasts, Technologies, Players, is once again becoming commercial.

The AMSYSTEMS Center is a joint innovation center of TNO and the High Tech Systems Center of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e HTSC) to accelerate (new ways of) additive manufacturing in diverse industries.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 5 July titled Advances in Fiber Laser Technologies.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 12 July titled Gas Sensors for Internet of Things.

IDTechEx is hosting a free webinar on Thursday 28 June 2018 titled Electric Trucks and Delivery Vans.

In this article IDTechEx gives a short overview of the topic of wide bandgap semiconductors covering the fundamental material science, the key players, the market potential. The impact on a range of applications will also be discussed, with a focus on renewable energy systems and microgrids.

2018 has been the year of major new announcements at Stratasys. Not only have they announced that they are developing two new technologies, but they are doing so through the launch of two start-ups and are venturing into the lucrative metal 3D printing ecosystem in the process

IDTechEx attended the event last week to meet with key stakeholders including industrial OEMs, power module manufacturers, established semiconductor companies and innovative new GaN (gallium nitride) and SiC (silicon carbide) developers to report back on the current and future trends. The following article is the second of two parts and provides a summary of some of the key GaN related developments and at the event and their impact on various industries and applications.

In the recently published IDTechEx market report titled Fiber Lasers 2018-2028: Technologies, Opportunities, Markets & Forecasts, Dr Nilushi Wijeyasinghe explores how recent fiber laser technology developments affect the growth of key market segments.

IDTechEx Analyst Dr Na Jiao attended The China International Battery Fair (CIBF), the first legal international battery fair in the Chinese battery industry, which is held every two years.

IDTechEx attended the event last week to meet with key stakeholders including industrial OEMs, power module manufacturers, established semiconductor companies and innovative GaN (gallium nitride and SiC (silicon carbide) developers to report back on the current and future trends.

In this premium article we will discuss the key technological and business trends shaping the dynamics of existing and emerging applications areas. This will be useful article for anyone interested in the conductive ink business

IDTechEx analyst, Dr Na Jiao, reports her findings from the Battery Show Europe 2018

The new IDTechEx report, "Wave, Tidal and Hydro Power 1W-10MW 2018-2038" observes that the main investors in water power - governments, utilities etc. - seek something that may become large in gross sales value by involving very large grid projects rather than large numbers of small and medium-sized projects.

Here are some outstanding achievements with much further to go: the Lighting a Billion Lives campaign from 2007 and allied work extending into solar weaving, cooking and boat charging.

It is a matter of survival now. Neglect of global warming is causing rising sea levels that will soon flood an increasingly large number of cities, that and the melting icecaps making more of the fresh water in the world salty, so desalination is a market doubling every ten years.

RFBs have the potential to become a mainstream technology that will compete directly with lithium-ion and sodium-sulphur, currently the two leading chemistries in the stationary storage market.