Lithium-ion batteries

Scientists led by Moscow’s Skolkovo Institute of Technology have drawn upon several of their recent battery material innovations to create a potassium-ion device. The institute says its development will pave the way for ultrafast and durable, high capacity metal-ion batteries, to supply rising demand for energy storage innovations.

American John B. Goodenough, Brit Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino, from Japan, have received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing the lithium-ion battery. A statement from the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden said the invention “laid the foundations of a society without wires and fossil fuels, and [they] are of great benefit to humanity”.

With the 200 hydrogen bikes offered to journalists and world leaders at the G7 summit in Biarritz proving popular, manufacturer Pragma Industries has received an order for 1,000 of them from Chilean president Sebastian Pinera. The company’s founder, Pierre Forté, wants the bike to have a societal impact in developing countries.

While the damage is largely done for cells, modules and inverters, increased tariffs on U.S. module components and 15% measures on lithium-ion batteries are not good news for either sector.

According to a press release from Sandia National Laboratories, the testing lab now uses an indoor tower to drop 200-lb+ weights on lithium-ion batteries in efforts to learn more about how batteries respond to stress. This will be especially helpful in understanding how electric vehicle batteries may respond in an automobile accident.

Scientists at the U.K.’s Faraday Institution have been able to observe degradation mechanisms at the lithium metal anode in a solid state battery, and made several discoveries which could improve the performance and design of future solid-state lithium-ion batteries.

Worldwide investments in clean energy projects have hit a six-year low. Global spending totaled $117.6 billion in the first half of 2019, down 14% from a year earlier and the least since 2013, according to a report by BloombergNEF. Investments slowed in all three major markets -- the U.S., Europe and China -- but China’s decline was especially pronounced as the country continued its shift away from subsidies for solar and wind power.