Issue 9
Week 25 February - 3 March 2019
Welcome to the third 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.
Prediction of all-solid-state batteries properties
Michigan State University chemists have developed "a fully first-principles-informed model of potential profiles" in all-solid-state batteries (SSBs). They applied the model to a battery system and report an observation that may be useful for designing better SSBs.
Impact areas: Solid-state battery performance
Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.11158
Vanadium-flow home backup batteries
Phys.org writes about a startup called StorEn Technologies, headquartered at Stony Brook University's energy incubator. The company is building a battery that could power a home during power outages or that can be connected to solar panels. Unlike Li-ion home-scale batteries from other providers, their design is based on a smaller version of utility-scale vanadium-flow batteries with liquid electrolyte. Reportedly, the life of a vanadium-flow battery is much longer, with StorEn claiming that their batteries "can easily last 25 years with no decay in capacity."
Impact areas: Home battery market, Vanadium-flow battery supply chain
Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-02-ny-startup-aims-tesla-powerwall.html
New insights into promising iron-nickel oxide catalyst
A team of chemists have proposed an explanation of the effectiveness of a recently discovered iron-nickel oxide catalyst. Using X-ray absorption spectroscopy, they studied the catalyst in action and came up with a theory. Catalysts are important for producing hydrogen economically and are also critical components in fuel cells.
Impact areas: Fuel cell adoption
Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-02-water-splitting-catalyst.html
Modern batteries are too weak for container ships
An article in IEEE Spectrum discusses what it would take to power a container ship with batteries. The conclusion is rather discouraging: batteries need a 10-fold boost in power density before they can compete with diesel.
Impact areas: Maritime transport
Source: https://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/marine/electric-container-ships-are-stuck-on-the-horizon
High-powered fuel cell for subs
Chemists from Washington University in St. Louis have developed a borohydride fuel cell that uses pH-gradient-enabled microscale bipolar interface (PMBI). The fuel cell has acid at one electrode and alkali at the other, separated by a membrane. The fuel cell reportedly generates double the voltage of commercial fuel cells. The researchers propose it for submersibles but also say it might be a good option for drones and eventually - for electric aircraft.
Impact areas: Fuel cell applications in transportation
Source: https://source.wustl.edu/2019/02/high-powered-fuel-cell-may-boost-electric-powered-drones-aircraft/
A battery is gong to the moon
ispace, a space exploration company, is planning to send a solid-state battery to the moon as part of a test exercise in 2021. The battery will be made by NGK Spark Plug and will feature ceramic electrolyte.
Impact areas: Solid-state battery durability, Space exploration
Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-02-solid-state-battery-ispace-hakuto-r.html
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