Issue 4 (2019)
Week 21-27 January 2019
Welcome to the new edition of our Last Week In Batteries digest!
This weekly digest of developments in the battery space is intended as a demonstration of what one can do with Avogadro One. Avogadro One allows capturing relevant news easily and quickly, saving you valuable time. If you want to know when you can use Avogadro One for your own research, please sign up to our mailing list here. We would also be happy to hear any feedback.
This is a very basic review of last week's events relevant to the battery and fuel cell industries. We do not pretend to be experts in this space but as investors we find such an overview helpful. The digest is intentionally very brief and dry and is intended as a demonstration rather as an end product. We'd love to hear what tools/software/platforms you use to stay abreast of the events in your industries of interest. Please answer our anonymous questionnaire.
Polymer bipolar plates
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft researchers have developed a technique to produce polymer bipolar plates. These plates can make battery manufacturing more efficient, saving up to 80% of material that goes into production. Moreover, the plates can be made flexible or stiff, and can be easily welded together for tight sealing.
Impact areas: Battery costs and applications
A study of static electricity
Scientist from the University at Buffalo are studying static electricity. Understanding this phenomenon could one day lead to energy harvesting technologies that would charge our mobile devices from our own movement.
Impact areas: Mobile devices
Source: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2019/01/024.html
Antimonene as battery material
A team of researchers has published a paper on arXiv, where they describe the use of 2D antimonene in lithium batteries. They conclude that antimonene "may be promising as an anode material for new-generation Li-Ion batteries or ionic conductors."
Impact areas: Li-Ion battery performance
Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.07193
Synthesizing KO4
A team of Chinese researchers has developed a method to synthesize potassium superoxide KO4, which might be interesting as replacement for lithium in metal-air batteries.
Impact areas: Metal-air batteries
Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.06784
Toyota-Panasonic battery joint venture
Toyota and Panasonic are setting up a joint venture to produce batteries for electric vehicles. Toyota will hold a 51% stake in the new company, which should be set up by the end of 2020.
Impact areas: Electric vehicle battery supply chain
Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-toyota-panasonic-venture-green-auto.html
More accurate algorithm to estimate Li-Ion battery health
A team of researchers from the University of Michigan and Harbin University of Science and Technology has developed a new algorithm that measures state of charge, state of health, and parameters of Li-Ion batteries with greater precision than existing techniques.
Impact areas: Li-Ion battery safety and performance
Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.06000