Energy storage - Page 9

SaltX Technology, a Swedish energy storage company that develops and sells a technology with which energy can be stored in salt and recovered in the form of heat or cold, entered a strategic collaboration with specialty paper producer Ahlstrom-Munksjö to develop a large-scale manufacturing method where paper is coated with graphene. The graphene-coated paper will act as carrier of SaltX patented Nano Coated Salt, increasing the heat conductivity of the SaltX material by up to five times.

The method to manufacture SaltX energy storage material on paper potentially reduces the cost by up to 80% compared to existing technique. It also enables an industrial and scalable production with an initial capacity of 100,000 tons of energy storage material, which is the equivalent to 50 gigawatt hours of thermal energy storage.

Urbix Resources recently licensed a portfolio of technologies invented at the University of Arizona. Among these are a graphene exfoliation reactor, a graphite purification technique, a new electrode architecture and an electrolyte. These technologies were developed by a research professor at the UA College of Optical Sciences which is now the full-time chief technology officer at Urbix, overseeing the commercialization of these technologies.

Urbix executive chairman and co-founder Nico Cuevas sees these inventions as "transformational for the energy storage industry". The company has made steps beyond its original graphite commercialization business model to bring these new materials and battery cell designs to market.

Sweden-based 2D Fab AB recently entered into a collaboration agreement with a "technology leader in the energy storage market segment". 2D Fab AB states that it sees very large future volumes of graphene in these areas, and that it has already had good cooperation within the polymer area. "It is therefore very pleasing that we have now found an innovative industrial partner in thermal conductivity".

The collaboration agreement dictated that the Company will also evaluate different strategies for production and delivery scale up. In addition, it gives the opportunity to build relationships with an important and "potentially very large customer". The agreement is ongoing, with customs tollgates every 6 months.

Gnanomat, a Spain-based company that designs and develops graphene-based nanomaterials for energy storage devices, recently opened new laboratories and pilot plant.

The construction and commissioning of the pilot plant will allow the scaling of its promising graphene-based nanomaterials on a pre-industrial scale. The plant will allow Gnanomat to produce up to 100 kilos of its product, a hybrid between GNP and metallic oxides, per year.

Two men leading a Hong-Kong company that raised money for (claimed) development of graphene-based chargers for mobile devices have recently been arrested as the entire operation seems to be a scam. They organized fundraising events in Hong Kong, Macau and on the mainland, and lured people to "invest" in the company's project. To become part of the fundraising, investors had to put in at least US$10,000 (HK$78,000). The name of the company remains undisclosed at the moment.

Similarly to the Xefro incidence, this is another sad example of wrongful exploitation of graphene's potential and promise. Cases like these cast shadows on the entire field, which is otherwise filled with honest, hard-working men and women that work tirelessly to develop actual graphene applications. Hopefully these cases will cease to occur as real graphene applications continue to emerge.

Today we published new versions of all our graphene market reports. Graphene-Info provides comprehensive niche graphene market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about these niche markets. The reports are now updated to January 2018.

The Graphene Batteries Market Report:

• The advantages using graphene batteries
• The different ways graphene can be used in batteries
• Various types of graphene materials
• What's on the market today
• Detailed specifications of some graphene-enhanced anode material
• Personal contact details into most graphene developers

The report package provides a good introduction to the graphene battery - present and future. It includes a list of all graphene companies involved with batteries and gives detailed specifications of some graphene-enhanced anode materials and contact details into most graphene developers. Read more here!

Swinburne researchers have received 3.45 million AUD (around $2.64 USD) in funding to continue work on a project investigating energy storage alternatives using graphene oxide. Swinburne will receive the grant as part of the Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) funds commissioned by the Australian Government. The Swinburne Centre for Micro-Photonics is collaborating with Flinders University as well as First Graphene and Kremford.

The ‘High performance energy storage alternative to lithium ion batteries’ project is working towards creating commercially viable and chemical-free batteries using graphene. This involves the production of a graphene oxide-based supercapacitor. Swinburne Researchers are developing the Bolt Electricity Storage Technology (BEST) battery a graphene oxide-based supercapacitor offering high performance and low-cost energy storage.

Canada-based Leading Edge Materials (formerly Flinders Resources), a graphite mining company with principal assets located in Scandinavia, has announced the initiation of a new government-funded project entitled Graphene Energy which aims to apply graphene from the Company’s Woxna graphite facility to enhance the electrical conductivity and the mechanical strength of lithium ion battery anodes. Other project partners comprise 2D fab AB, VestaSi AB, Ã…ngström Advanced Battery Centre (Ã…ABC), Uppsala University (UU) and Mid Sweden University (MIUN).

LEM receives significant support from the Swedish Government through the agency Vinnova, which funds collaborative research between companies, universities, research institutes and public sector. With the initiation of this latest project, the Company is now collaborating in four Swedish government or European Commission supported projects, demonstrating the spectrum of potential markets for Woxna graphite. Two of which are graphene-focused: The Vinnova Graphene Energy Project Announced December 6th 2017, and the Vinnova Graphene Composite Project Graphene Modified Composites for Long-Term and High-Temperature Applications Announced 8th June, 2017.

Skeleton Technologies has announced the signing of a distribution agreement with Sumitomo Corporation Europe, with the aim of providing energy storage solutions for the rapidly growing hybrid electric and electric vehicle industry.

In electric vehicles, graphene-based supercapacitors can be used in tandem with lithium-ion batteries, doubling the battery lifetime and downsizing the cell receiving the peak power from supercapacitors and the long-term energy from the batteries.

The NGI at The University of Manchester and William Blythe have announced the start of a new joint research project, targeting the development of high capacity graphene-related materials for use in the electric vehicle market.

The project will combine William Blythe’s core capabilities in inorganic synthetic chemistry and their graphene-oxide with the specialist experience of The University of Manchester’s Professor Robert Dryfe and the energy storage team at the NGI.