Fraunhofer

Germany catching up in electric vehicles

Germany is the strongest trading nation in Europe with the broadest and deepest automotive activity. However, the strategy of the German government and its automotive industry has been deeply flawed.

Standards will speed energy harvesting adoption

At the recent IDTechEx conference Energy Harvesting and Storage Europe in Munich, Roy Freeland, of the ISA100.18 Power Sources Working Group, spoke on how standards with hasten the adoption of energy harvesting, not least in Wireless Sensor Networks WSN.

Second day of Energy Harvesting Europe

The second day of the conference Energy Harvesting and Storage Europe was as rich with information and expert opinion as the first. Here are just few of the overall impressions given by the day's events.

Innovalight establishes new record with silicon ink solar cells

Innovalight, Inc., a privately-held firm selling a platform of silicon ink-based high efficiency solar cell materials and technology, has announced that the company has achieved a new record of 19 percent conversion efficiency with silicon ink processed solar cells. The conversion efficiency of a solar cell is the proportion of sunlight energy that a cell converts to electrical energy.

Energy Harvesting & Storage and Wireless Sensor Networks, RTLS Preview

Only the IDTechEx "Energy Harvesting and Storage" events are paired with "Wireless Sensor Networks & RTLS", covering the systems most in need of energy harvesting.

Munich - global hub of energy harvesting

The Munich region has been a high-tech area for many years, and was once referred to as the silicon valley of Germany but it is much more than that, one major focus being the technology and use of energy harvesting.

POLARIC underway producing high volume organic electronic circuits

A new EU-funded project, POLARIC, has been launched to develop roll-to-roll printing of high-performance organic electronic circuits.

Heliatek and IAPP achieve record efficiency levels

As part of a joint research project carried out together with the Technical University of Dresden's Institute of Applied Photo-Physics, the Dresden-based Heliatek GmbH company has achieved a break-through in organic solar-cell efficiency

Printable sensors

The cellphone is switched off but immediately springs into action at the point of a finger. It is not necessary to touch the display. This touchless control is made possible by a polymer sensor affixed to the cellphone which, like human skin, reacts to the tiniest fluctuations in temperature and differences in pressure and recognizes the finger as it approaches.

Electromobility: fast-tracking innovation

Battery systems, chargers, wheel hub motors - in the cars of the future, what will the components look like, and how will they interact with each other?

Smoothing the way for economic flexible OLEDs

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are nowadays synonymous with next generation lighting, which could replace common light-bulbs in a couple of years. They convert electricity very efficiently into light of high quality. However, existing OLEDs on the market are costly and mostly deposited on rigid materials such as glass. The development of flexible, organic light-emitting diodes, which can be manufactured on an industrial scale, promises economies of scale and accordingly broader marketing of the environmentally sound and highly efficient devices.

The truly integrated circuit is printed and flexible

For 40 years, so called integrated circuits have integrated little more than transistors, diodes and sensors onto one piece of material but now there are much more integrated circuits arriving where most electrical and electronic components are co-deposited on flexible substrates. Those flexible substrates are key, because this new electronics will be affordable and desirable on everything from apparel to human skin and electrical and consumer packaged goods, where surfaces are only rarely flat.

POLARIC revolutionises production of organic electronic circuits

A new EU-funded project POLARIC was launched in January 2010 to develop roll-to-roll printing of high-performance organic electronic circuits. The project will revolutionise the way printed electronic circuits are made by combining large-area fabrication methods with high-performance organic electronic circuits on a scale not previously attempted.

Printing large batteries

170 years ago, Faraday appreciated the different electrical properties of nano gold over bulk metal in electrical devices, so applying nanotechnology to these things is scarcely new. However, the huge sums now being applied to improvement of lithium traction batteries in particular are now leading to work on a much larger scale and thin film technology, nanotechnology and printing are in increasingly important part of this.

CNTs & graphene and the situation in Germany

The demands placed on new, high-tech materials are continually increasing, and existing material systems are reaching their limits. Due to their exceptional electrical and mechanical properties, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene and their composite materials offer high potential for use in diverse applications such as photovoltaics, sensors, semiconductor devices, displays, conductors, smart textiles and energy conversion devices (e.g., fuel cells, harvesters and batteries).

Lithium vehicle traction batteries and harvesting

The conference of about 40 people "Lithium Battery Technology and System Development" in London 9 March 2010 was concerned with "breaking barriers for electric vehicles".