Research Articles

IDTechEx will be hosting a free 30-minute webinar on Wednesday 29 April 2020. Miniaturised Gas Sensors for Environmental Monitoring will be presented by IDTechEx Technology Analyst, Dr Luyun Jiang.

Data can drive insights, increase efficiency, and provide detailed information about current water and wastewater networks. The water industry is one which has many unknowns, and more data can provide help to this mature and large industry.

While Li-ion batteries have totally conquered the electric-vehicle industry, and currently dominating the energy storage sector as well, the redox flow batteries are silently (but not too much) taking their share of the stationary energy storage market.

While flexible electronics have been around for years, either as flexible PCBs or genuinely printed electronics, there has always been a trade-off between flexibility and capability. A new report from IDTechEx discusses the innovation trends, opportunities and challenges in the FHE market.

IDTechEx have released a new report covering the market, technology and players in hearables. It finds that the hearables market was worth $24.5bn in 2019 and will continue to grow at a forecasted 14% YoY from 2020-2025.

The need for universal and massive testing across the population has led to a race for technology innovations for COVID-19 diagnostics. The new IDTechEx report, "COVID-19 Diagnostics", surveys the technology landscape, with an in-depth analysis of the technology innovations that are enabling quick access to COVID-19 diagnosis in response to the global pandemic.

IDTechEx forecasts exponential growth to a huge $350 billion in 2040 for clean microgrids. It will be driven by legislation, cost, increasing problems with national grids and many new applications. Electrifying mines to farms and transport helps too.

Conductive ink business is inherently wonderfully diverse, which has allowed the industry to rejuvenate itself time and again and to remain relevant through generations of product lifecycles. This diversity, however, presents a market segmentation, evaluation, and prioritization challenge for many small and large players across the world.

Metallization of 3D surfaces is a growing field with diverse applications. In this article, we briefly discuss some techniques and applications thereof. More specifically, we discuss and critically benchmark laser direct structuring, aerosol, 3D printed electronics, two-shot molding and In-Mold Electronics.

The new IDTechEx report, "Zero-Emission Electric Vehicle Charging: Off-Grid 2020-2040" examines how the electric vehicle business is finding it profitable to respond to criticism that clean vehicles should not be charged with fossil fuel electricity.

What is the technology and commercial status of Autonomous mobility, and what does the future market deployment look like?

In this article, we discuss the challenges and prospects faced by QDs in the general lighting market. This article draws from the report "Quantum Dot Materials and Technologies 2020-2030: Trends, Markets, Players".

This article discusses a variety of issues currently seen in AR/VR/MR, which the coming decade hopes to resolve.

IDTechEx forecast Li-ion demand to grow almost 10-fold from 2020-2030, but can supply meet this demand? Automotive manufacturers the world over are pledging to electrify their fleets.

An increasing number of news articles about "Redox Flow Batteries" are present on the web. This technology, mostly adopted in on-grid and off-grid applications, has been studied for the last 50 years, and it is currently being commercialized (most of the time) in a containerized size, for medium- and large-scale applications.

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing medical diagnostics. This is a ground-breaking development with far-reaching consequences. Naturally, many innovators are scrambling to capitalize on these advancements.

Empty supermarket shelves have become a common sight in recent weeks. Coronavirus Has Highlighted the Problems in Supermarket Supply: Could Vertical Farming Be The Solution?

The market for electric vehicles is set to exceed $1,000bn by 2030 but potential consumers are still concerned with range, cost and safety. Whilst this draws attention initially to the battery, an equally important factor and unifying component of electric vehicles is the electric motor and its effective thermal management.

The pandemic infection of COVID-19 has led to the lockdown of a considerable number of cities, leading to reduced pollution activity. With the large number of renewable energy sources employed in the last decades to decarbonise the energy sector, a growing number of energy storage devices have been coupled with renewable energy sources.

The world has a plastics problem. Every day, approximately 8 million pieces of plastic make their way into the world's oceans and plastic pollution can now be found on every beach in the world, from busy tourist beaches to uninhabited tropical islands.

Cardiologists need to rely on the technology at their disposal. Shortages in available donor tissue for cardiac transplantation are driving the development of cardiovascular 3D bioprinting technologies.

Recent developments bring into focus the motivation, and at times the imperative, to increase automation in the logistics and delivery chain. IDTechEx have been examining the technological and commercial trends in this field for several years.

In its recently published report "Innovations in Robotic Surgery 2020-2030", IDTechEx forecasts that the robotic surgery market will reach over $12 billion by 2030. The report breaks down the market landscape and emerging technologies in the field of robotic surgery.

In 2020 vessel owners have had to deal with an 'emissions control world' for the first time. Unlike most other mobility sectors, which predominantly tend to switch partly or completely to a traction battery in order to meet emissions targets, a mixture of solutions have a role to play for boats and ships.

As part of research commissioned by the International Copper Association (ICA) IDTechEx outlines which electric traction motor technologies are winning in electric cars, with a view to how this will impact overall copper demand by 2030.

Meat is big business. The global industry is worth over $2 trillion and JBS, the world's largest meat company, makes over $50 billion in annual revenue. This article from Dr Michael Dent discusses the sustainability problems in the meat industry and what can be done?

XR is a term which has become more prominent in the last few years. It encapsulates virtual, augmented, and mixed reality topics. The definition of each of these has become saturated in the past decade, with companies using their own definitions for each to describe their products.

Plastic pollution is rapidly becoming one of the world's biggest environmental issues as increasing production of single use plastic products far outweighs the world's ability to deal with them.

The redox flow battery market is growing. After more than 40 years of research, and 20 years of testing and demonstration projects, the flow batteries are now technologically ready to compete on the energy storage market. With a forecasted CAGR of 30% in the next years, this technology is looking to have all the characteristics to address each segment of the energy storage market, from residential to grid scale application.

In the past decade, mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) has attracted significant attention as it holds the potential to disrupt the business model of the traditional automotive industry and the way people travel.

Electrics and robotics squares the circle of seeking a wider variety of depleting materials in nastier, more remote places from the seafloor to four kilometres underground, up remote mountains and later outer space. Zero-emission microgrids on-site, sensors everywhere and new information and communications technology lubricate the process.

Vertical farming is the practice of growing plants indoors under fully controlled environmental conditions in many stacked layers, using artificial lighting instead of relying on the sun. By tuning the growing environment to the exact needs of the plant and using soil-free growing techniques, vertical farming can achieve yields hundreds of times higher than conventional agriculture, 365 days a year and without requiring pesticides.

The electric vehicle market is growing rapidly, and with it the demand for fast charging, increased energy density and improved safety. Something that all these areas have in common is heat. Charging a battery quickly generates a lot of heat, with the extra energy capacity of modern and upcoming electric vehicle batteries, extracting this heat becomes more challenging.

Along with the rest of the automotive sector, the medium and heavy-duty truck market is evolving. Governments around the world, recognising the potentially catastrophic repercussions of unfettered climate change and witnessing the detrimental impact on human health from vehicle exhaust pollutant emissions in urban environments, are taking decisive action, that will, in the coming decades, drive vehicle manufacturers to zero on-road exhaust emission powertrain solutions. Consequently, the days of the fossil fuel powered combustion engine are numbered.

The EV market is booming. The battery is a key feature for both cost and performance, the chemistry and cell levels are extensively discussed. However, everything else that goes into a pack is often overlooked.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, with over 17 million per year according to the World Health Organisation. This represents approximately 31% of global deaths. Many forms of cardiovascular disease are chronic in nature, meaning that they worsen over time. Thus, once the disease has been diagnosed it is important to initiate treatment as soon as possible in order to provide positive patient outcomes.