Energy Storage

Now in its fifth year, Energy Storage India Expo (ESI Expo) took place in New Delhi from the 10th to the 12th January 2018, at the India Habitat Centre. The event was organised by Customised Energy Solutions, a US-Indian company that focuses on renewable energy management and consulting in energy storage. IDTechEx analyst Lorenzo Grande was invited there to give a presentation on future battery technologies.

Cummins Inc announced the acquisition of Johnson Matthey's UK automotive battery systems business, a subsidiary of Johnson Matthey that specializes in high-voltage automotive grade battery systems for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Toshiba Corporation announced the development of its next-generation material to double the capacity of LTO battery anodes. The new battery will give a compact electric vehicle (EV) a driving range of 320km after only six minutes of fast charging.

Scientists who introduced laser-induced graphene have enhanced their technique to produce what may become a new class of edible electronics.

Comberry is a Russian start-up that is working on a solid-state supercapacitor for microdevices. The company exhibited at the IDTechEx Show Europe 2017.

Cuberg is a Californian start-up that has developed a novel battery based on a litihum metal anode and a high voltage cathode, with a solid-like electrolyte in between. The company presented its work at the IDTechEx Show USA 2017

Sodium-ion batteries might soon provide a less expensive, viable alternative to lithium-ion batteries. The new technology also would help solve material sustainability issues by alleviating the mining of lithium - a diminishing resource.

A team of researchers has created a new fuel cell offering both exceptional power densities and long-term stability at optimal temperatures, a discovery that heightens the viability of incorporating fuel cells into a sustainable energy future.

Nabaltec is a German company that uses boehmite as ceramic coating for Li-ion battery separators. The company presented its innovative material at the IDTechEx Show 2017

BroadBit is a technology company developing revolutionary new batteries using novel sodium-based chemistries to power the future green economy.

A type of battery first invented nearly five decades ago could catapult to the forefront of energy storage technologies, thanks to a new finding by researchers.

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed an energy-efficient recycling process that restores used cathodes from spent lithium ion batteries and makes them work just as good as new. The process involves harvesting the degraded cathode particles from a used battery and then boiling and heat treating them. Researchers built new batteries using the regenerated cathodes. Charge storage capacity, charging time and battery lifetime were all restored to their original levels.

The rapid development of flexible and wearable electronics is giving rise to an exciting range of applications, from smart watches and flexible displays—such as smart phones, tablets, and TV—to smart fabrics, smart glass, transdermal patches, sensors, and more. With this rise, demand has increased for high-performance flexible batteries. Up to now, however, researchers have had difficulty obtaining both good flexibility and high energy density concurrently in lithium-ion batteries.

Scientists have created a customizable, fabric-like power source that can be cut, folded or stretched without losing its function.

Cleanvolt Energy is a US start-up that is developing a new type of supercapacitor based on organometallic molecules capable of storing up to 4x the energy density and 22x the power density of Li-ion batteries.

Shanghai Mi Fang Electronics was founded in 2015. The company focuses on printing various electronic components/devices such as microprocessor, display, PV and battery by a single microcomputer-based printer, which can be applied in IoT, wearables, add-in manufacturing, PV electricity generation, new integrated circuits, etc.

New research has found an effective approach to replacing graphite in the anodes of lithium-ion batteries using silicon, by reinforcing the anode's structure with graphene girders. This could more than double the life of rechargeable lithium-ion based batteries and also increase the capacity delivered by those batteries.

IDTechEx has attended CES 2018. This article will show the highlights in various emerging technologies.

Enevate is a US start-up that is about to launch its fast-charging, high energy, silicon-based batteries. The company claims a 750 Wh/L energy density and up to 50% longer runtime than its competitors.

The University of Bath is part of a consortium of academic and industry partners awarded Government funding to conduct research aimed at overcoming battery challenges to accelerate the electric vehicle revolution.