Supercapacitors

Structural electronics (SE) is one of the most important emerging technologies in this century.

Form factor is becoming a major driver shaping innovation and transforming the energy storage industry globally.

Electronics embedded within the structure of bridges, walkways, EVs, aircraft and more, have the potential to be a $60 billion market by 2025.

The event Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Forum consisted a conference with about 70 delegates and a small display area for a few organisations. Here we give some details of the presentations that particularly caught our attention.

The Reed Exhibitions event last week consisting of PV Expo, Battery Osaka and Smart Grid Expo successfully extended an event that started with photovoltaics last year.

Graphene electrodes are one of the best prospects for enabling supercapacitors and superbatteries to take up to half of the lithium-ion battery market in 15 years - amounting to tens of billions of dollars yearly.

Graphene could radically improve batteries and supercapacitors as explained in the new IDTechEx report Functional Materials for Supercapacitors/Ultracapacitors/EDLC 2015-2025.

The replacement of batteries means grabbing a chunk of the lithium-ion battery market in particular but also inroads into lead-acid and nickel metal hydride territory.

It is now commonplace for supercapacitors to be placed across lithium-ion batteries. Indeed, in some applications, the battery is now omitted and the supercapacitor does the job on its own as with some hybrid and pure electric bus traction systems and power tools.

New research by IDTechEx in the report Graphene Markets, Technologies and Opportunities 2014-2024 External Link shows that graphene markets will grow from around $20 million in 2014 to more than $390 million in 2024, at the material level.