Archive : 23 March 2015 год

A market report from IDTechEx has determined the big consumer electronics companies are set to drive demand for flexible batteries such that the market will grow from $6.9million in 2015 to more than $400m in 2025.

The company recognises that while flexible or printed batteries have been available commercially for more than 15 years, no applications have required volume production. However, it says, the market is undergoing drastic change driven by the emergence of new sectors, including wearable electronics.

In the report – Flexible, Printed and Thin Film Batteries 2015-2025 – the market researcher says that while product developers are looking to reduce energy consumption and improve charging methods, wearable technology and IoT require ultra thin flexible batteries with small footprints.

The report cites a number of examples, including Samsung's demonstration of flexible, rollable battery (pictured), Apple's battery patents for wearables and consumer electronics and LG Chemical's curved battery. 'Other big names, such as Nokia, Showa Denko and STMicroelectronics are making their contributions in this area as well', it adds.

Author
Graham Pitcher

Source:  www.newelectronics.co.uk

According to Escatec, several companies usually have to work together to create a production test solution that links into NI LabVIEW/TestStand PC test software – often a slow and process expensive that is prone to mistakes.

Looking to overcome these difficulties, the Swiss based contract manufacturing services specialist has launched a built in self test (BIST) creation service. This is said to cut the time it takes to develop the solution and to free the customer's engineering staff from product test programming.

"Because we have considerable experience at doing this, we are very fast and therefore cost competitive," contended Michael Walser, head of global R&D. "Writing the software programs that test the device and interface between the MCU and the production test PC is not a core competence of most customers, but we do it all the time.

"Because we are a full service company, we have a detailed understanding of all the stages from R&D to production to ensure a smooth transition between all stages."

One of the first companies to take advantage of the service was a Swiss medical company that needed to get a product to market quickly. Escatec said it delivered the solution in half the time that it would otherwise have taken. "Medical is a growing area for us," explained Michael Walser, "as we are one of the few contract design and manufacturing companies to be certified to Class 2 and Class 3 for the manufacture and development of medical devices that is part of the ISO13485 quality management system."

Author
Graham Pitcher

Source:  www.newelectronics.co.uk

The polystyrene used in packaging has proved a headache when it comes to disposal. There are few recycling options, which means the material usually ends up in landfill.

However, a team from Purdue University in the US has developed a way to convert polystyrene from waste packing into carbon electrodes for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and the electrodes are said to outperform conventional graphite electrodes.

The method is simple and straightforward, according to Professor Vilas Pol. "Typically, the 'peanuts' are heated between 500 and 900°C in a furnace under inert atmosphere in the presence or absence of a transition metal salt catalyst."

According to the team, commercial anode particles are about 10 times thicker than the new anodes and have a higher electrical resistance, which increases charging time. "In our case, if we are lithiating this material during the charging of a battery it has to travel only 1µm, so you can charge and discharge a battery faster than your commercially available material," Prof Pol said.

Carbon anodes derived from polystyrene packaging demonstrated a maximum specific capacity of 420mAhr/g – higher than graphite's theoretical capacity of 372 mAh/g.

"Long term electrochemical performance of these carbon electrodes is very stable," said postdoctoral research associate Vinodkumar Etacheri. "We cycled it 300 times without significant capacity loss. These carbonaceous electrodes are also promising for rechargeable sodium-ion batteries. Future work will include steps to potentially improve performance by further activation to increase the surface area and pore size to improve the electrochemical performance."

Author
Graham Pitcher

Source:  www.newelectronics.co.uk