Electrification is tough. It has taken around 15 years to convince car owners that battery power is a viable alternative to their fossil fuel comfort blanket. In the construction, agriculture, and mining industries, electrification is an even steeper uphill battle. In these industries, if a machine runs out of battery, the operators will soon start losing money.

Since the conception of flexible battery technologies, suppliers have searched for strong application markets for their products. In the last five years, niches have finally begun to materialize, though the specific use case depends on battery technology.

Fuel cell electric vehicles, Li-ion battery-powered cars, and carbon dioxide removal strategies all work to reduce global CO2 emissions. IDTechEx has a multitude of sustainability reports that give outlooks on the shared efforts of various sectors to reduce CO2 emissions in the air, to promote a cleaner way forward.

Thursday 18 July 2024 - EV thermal system architecture and fluids used; Battery thermal management and trends; Motor thermal management and trends; Future refrigerants; Outlook for fluid content and forecasts

Owing to their exceptional design flexibility, structural versatility, and high porosity, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are gathering interest for a wide range of applications, such as water harvesting for HVAC, direct lithium extraction, refrigerant reclamation, hydrogen storage, chemical purifications, and many more.

Industries have traditionally used fossil fuels to produce heat for their processes or to fuel power plants to generate electricity, including the use of natural gas, oil, and coal. Industrial heating processes are responsible for ~25% of global emissions, and therefore, great attention from governments and states is being seen to decarbonize this area of industry.

Electric buses are booming, with sales growing in Europe, America, India, and other key regions. Transport operators have shown themselves keen to electrify urban transport and cut greenhouse gas emissions. As emissions regulations tighten, city buses are likely to be all-electric within the next few years.

Improving the performance and reducing the cost of Li-ion batteries have been primary concerns for the Li-ion battery industry over the past 10-15 years. The environmental and societal implications of Li-ion battery production and deployment have come under increasing scrutiny, along with concerns regarding supply chain concentration.

Electric vehicles, much like combustion vehicles, require a suite of fluids in order to operate optimally. However, the quantities and properties of these fluids can be quite different. With a strongly growing EV market, this presents a large opportunity for not just fluid suppliers but also fluid additives and fluid handling component suppliers.

One of the main reasons that electrification is so appealing in any industry is the reduction in operating costs offered by electric machines. This is especially true across the construction, agriculture, and mining (CAM) industries. Large machines with high uptimes, like mining haul trucks, can consume millions of dollars in fuel over their lifetime.

Heating and cooling accounts for approximately 50% of global energy consumption, with 30% of this consumption represented by heating demand from industry. Given that the great majority of industrial heating processes use fossil fuels to generate heat, this has caused industrial heating processes to be responsible for ~25% of global emissions.

According to IEA's 2023 update to its net zero roadmap, carbon capture technologies, more efficient space cooling equipment, and clean energy transitions are all cornerstones of achieving net zero by 2050 and limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Emerging technologies utilizing metal-organic framework (MOF) materials for carbon capture, refrigerant reclamation, direct lithium extraction, HVAC equipment, and various other chemical separations and purification processes can see the advent of disruptive next-generation technologies that are essential for industrial decarbonization.

The risk of missing out on the competitive advantage quantum computing offers is rising. Governments and private investors worldwide are placing multi-billion-dollar bets that the industry will produce huge long-term returns. Yet, for this to be realized, the theoretical advantage of quantum computers must be translated into real-world commercial value. In this article, IDTechEx explores which applications are being developed today across the materials, chemical, automotive, finance, and healthcare industries.

Thursday 6 June 2024 - Construction, Agriculture and Mining: Specialised Machines Require Specialised Batteries; Machine electrification in different CAM markets; Battery sizing and performance requirements across electric CAM machines; Cycle life requirements across different CAM machines; Upcoming battery technologies and how they fit in with the needs of electric CAM machines

Maximizing energy density has been one key area of focus in electric vehicle battery development. Optimizations in cell and battery pack designs, alongside the use of higher nickel NMC and NCA cathodes, have led to steady improvement in battery energy density over the past 10-15 years.

Green hydrogen production utilizes four main electrolyzer technologies: alkaline water electrolysis (AWE), proton exchange membrane (PEM), anion exchange membrane (AEM), and solid oxide electrolyzers (SOEC). Each technology has its own operational principles, performance characteristics, and commercial maturity.

Construction, agriculture, and mining (CAM) machine OEMs have recently started their electrification journey. Over the next 10 years, IDTechEx predicts strong growth in this market, driven by the falling price of batteries and the total cost of ownership benefits that electric machines provide. As such, a new battery market will be created, one that IDTechEx's new "Battery Markets in Construction, Agriculture & Mining Machines 2024-2034" report finds will grow to a value of US$7.8 billion at a 10-year CAGR of 27.1% and with an annual demand of more than 50GWh in 2034.

Sodium-ion batteries are beginning to become increasingly relevant in 2024 after many mass production announcements were made in 2023. OEMs may look to alternative chemistries to reduce reliance on critical minerals with potentially volatile supply chains. NMC(A) batteries are currently the leading battery chemistry in Europe and the UK, while LFP dominates in China.

Thursday 23 May 2024 - An overview of metal-organic frameworks and their emerging applications; Scaling MOF production for industrial applications; Considerations of production cost and selling price of MOFs; Examples of MOF-based point source carbon capture and direct air capture solutions and comparisons with incumbent technology; Outlook for MOFs in carbon capture including opportunities and challenges

Wednesday 15 May 2024 - Next generation anode materials such as silicon, lithium and anode-free designs; Innovations in cathode active materials and their manufacture; Important cell and pack design changes and trends; Key cost and resource consideration from advanced Li-ion battery chemistries; IDTechEx's outlook for advanced Li-ion technology