Research Articles

Thin film photovoltaics (PV) currently comprises a small portion of the total solar market, yet offer extensive opportunities for applying solar power in new and emerging applications.

White biotechnology, which uses engineered microbes to produce chemicals, materials, and fuels, is emerging as a key driver of the sustainable bioeconomy by offering lower-carbon alternatives to fossil-based manufacturing. Advances in genetic engineering, synthetic biology, and regulatory support are expanding their applications across industries, though commercial success depends on factors like scalability, process efficiency, and market acceptance of green premiums.

In April 2025, it was announced that China's GB 38031-2025 would be mandated by July 2026 for new vehicles. This 2025 update goes well beyond the previous one with the requirement for no fire or explosion for 2 hours after the initial event.

Due to the growing concerns surrounding the health of humans and the environment as a result of PFAS, regulations are being put in place worldwide. While many countries still have no restrictions on PFAS usage, other countries, specifically within the EU, are potentially facing a universal PFAS ban.

With rapid charging becoming common and more powerful for battery electric vehicles, IDTechEx assesses whether this makes fuel cell electric vehicles less appealing in comparison.

Thursday 8 May 2025 - Surviving the Heat, Heat Shields for Atmospheric Re-Entry in an Increasingly Commercial Space Industry; Outline the role and function of TPS; Delineate the key categories of TPS, from tile-based systems to ablators and hypersonic expandable decelerators; Examine the key requirements of TPS, from a technical and economic perspective, as well as emerging use-cases; Give a brief outlook for the market over the next decade

The rise of QLC SSDs is challenging hard disk drives in cold storage and beyond. IDTechEx explores how performance, density, and cost are shifting the economics of data storage.

Collaborative robots (cobots) are reshaping automotive manufacturing by enabling safe, flexible, and efficient human-robot collaboration across tasks like assembly, screwing, and polishing, thanks to advanced force sensing, AI-driven vision, and intuitive programming. As electric vehicle production grows and factories seek greater agility, cobots offer a scalable solution, with their market projected to expand significantly through 2045.

Concrete is the second most consumed resource in the world, following behind only water. It is a well-understood material with excellent properties, including its strength, robustness, and fire and water resistance. Because concrete will continue to be necessary for building new infrastructure as populations grow and urbanize, simply cutting down on construction isn't an option.

Wednesday 7 May 2025 - Green Steel Market: Key Drivers, Production Pathways, Innovations, and Offtake Sectors; Overview of the iron and steel supply chain, including low-carbon and green steel; Key drivers for the steel decarbonization and the green steel market, including policies and incentives in key regions; Key innovations in iron and steel production technology; Main sectors adopting green steel and a market outlook

This article analyzes the significant impact of recent US tariffs on the EV charging market, affecting both the physical charging equipment and the broader electrical infrastructure required to support it.

The environment often pays a price for the comforts of modern life. Every year on Earth Day, the world reflects on pathways towards a greener economy that promotes resource circularity and a lower carbon footprint.

Self-healing concrete aims to mitigate economic losses caused by corrosion and degradation of concrete, such as the need for repair or replacement, maintenance costs, and disruptions caused by downtime. Bacteria-based approaches are leading the way for self-healing concrete.

IDTechEx forecasts the Li-ion battery recycling market to grow to US$52B in value by 2045, given the increasing availability of retired Li-ion batteries over the coming decades. Key sources of feedstock will include electric vehicle batteries, and Li-ion batteries from energy storage systems, consumer electronics, alongside manufacturing scrap.

Advanced carbon materials can be described as a family, made up of a diverse array of 3D, 2D, 1D, and 0D materials, each with its own properties and best-suited applications. IDTechEx's research provides in-depth analysis of the market impact of each material type, and their individual use cases from high-end sporting goods to R&D materials that are beginning to mature.

Wednesday 30 April 2025 - Sodium-Ion Batteries: Navigating the Path to Commercial Maturity. The following aspects will be addressed: Impact of historically low lithium prices on sodium-ion's economic viability; Alternative value propositions beyond cost, including material availability and application-specific advantages; Sodium-ion battery players and commercialisation efforts; and IDTechEx outlook for sodium-ion batteries by 2030

The lithium metal battery market is gaining ever-growing interest due to the enhanced energy density of lithium when compared with graphite anodes. This could be particularly important within one of the main applications for this technology, the electric vehicle market, which currently represents the largest sector for global battery demand.

The article highlights how automotive OEMs are increasingly integrating AI-driven in-cabin sensing technologies into software-defined vehicle architectures, particularly in response to upcoming regulatory requirements like the EU's Advanced Driver Distraction Warning (ADDW).

Thursday 1 May 2025 - Direct Air Capture Developments: Technology Innovations, Supply Chains, and Electrochemical Methods; Status of direct air capture and leading players; Key strategies for reducing capture costs for direct air capture; Contextualizing direct air capture within voluntary carbon credit markets and the wider carbon dioxide removal space

Aerogel demand for EV fire protection grew by 15-fold between 2021 and 2024, according to IDTechEx, with key manufacturers shifting towards leveraging the growing aerogel manufacturing capacity in China to meet demand. But, with the US imposing tariffs on China and other global partners, what does this mean for the aerogels market?

Fire safety continues to be a key topic for electric vehicles (EVs) as the market continues to grow. In this article, IDTechEx discusses the different types of EV battery chemistry and its impact on thermal runaway safety.

Recycling plastics from the automotive sector and reusing them in vehicle manufacturing processes will be critical in reducing resource consumption and the use of unsustainable plastics.

Lithium-sulfur is already seeing development across multiple continents and is expected to achieve mass production by 2033. IDTechEx predicts that by 2035, the lithium-sulfur market will exceed US$1.3 billion.

The EU has revised its End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive, lowering recycled plastic targets from 25% to 20% due to supply chain limitations, while maintaining stricter rules on recyclability, producer responsibility, and vehicle exports. IDTechEx forecasts that automakers will still face major hurdles, including limited material availability, high costs, and fragmented supply chains, in meeting these goals by 2035.

Battery raw materials are in the spotlight as lithium-ion demand surges alongside growing emphasis on sustainability. Variations in material emission intensities suggest that major decarbonization opportunities exist in raw materials sourcing.

Second-life EV battery assessments can be carried out using diagnostic tools and software, with some newer approaches taking just ten minutes instead of a few hours with regular cycling methods. Second-life battery repurposing and accurate battery health assessments will become increasingly important alongside the growing availability of end-of-life (EOL) EV batteries.

The ability of PICs to precisely manipulate light at the chip level opens the door to various cutting-edge fields beyond data communication, including sensing, LiDAR, quantum computing, and high-performance computing (HPC).While PIC-based transceivers are set to dominate the market, with long-range transceivers for 5G/6G networks forming the second largest sector of the overall market, other applications for PIC are growing steadily.

The space economy is growing rapidly, driven by commercial operations with lower costs. Thermal protection systems enable spacecraft to endure the extreme environments of atmospheric entry, but how will developments in this industry impact the broader space economy?

Although there have been several unsuccessful attempts to commercialize MOFs historically, the design flexibility and structural versatility of MOFs have attracted widespread interest in numerous applications in recent years, many of which are nearing commercialization. With a projected 30-fold market growth by 2035, this article offers an in-depth look at how MOFs are reshaping the future of carbon capture, water harvesting, chemical and gas separations, and beyond.

Conventional printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing is wasteful, harmful to the environment and energy intensive. This can be mitigated by the implementation of new recyclable materials and technologies, which have the potential to revolutionize electronics manufacturing.

Wednesday 23 April 2025 - Market adoption rates and sales projections for 14 ADAS features; Cutting-edge developments from Tier 1 suppliers, including SoCs and vehicle-mounted sensors; Case studies from China, the US, and Europe on ADAS implementation

At GTC 2025, NVIDIA announced two new networking switch platforms - Spectrum-X Photonics and Quantum-X Photonics - based on Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) technology. Both platforms incorporate TSMC's 3D hybrid bonding technology for its CPO, and these will be the world's first 3D-stacked silicon photonics engine.

Ion exchange membranes are crucial materials used as solid electrolytes in green hydrogen and energy storage technologies. Rising demand and material manufacturing innovations are set to define the ion exchange membrane market over the next decade, which IDTechEx predicts will exceed US$2.9B in value by 2035.

Fuel cells are on the rise as sustainability and decarbonization efforts become more widespread globally due to their ability to help contribute to economies on their way to meeting net zero targets.

Early electrification work for micro EVs was carried out using Pb-acid batteries, but a fast transition toward Li-ion dominance is now underway. This article highlights key factors that will drive this critical transition over the next 20 years.

Solid-state batteries (SSBs) are heralded as a transformative innovation in energy storage (ES), offering numerous advantages over traditional lithium-ion batteries. These benefits position SSBs as a cornerstone of the next generation of battery technologies, with the potential to reshape industries reliant on ES.