October 6, 2008: Altair Nanotechnologies Inc. a provider of advanced materials and products for power and energy systems, has unveiled its new corporate brand identity, including a new logo, tagline, website and targeted advertising campaign, to tout its new focus on energy storage in the transportation, stationary power and military markets.

“Altairnano closely analyzes key drivers in the marketplace, and assesses where its technology can make the greatest impact for addressing its customers’ needs,” said Terry Copeland, president/CEO for Altair Nanotechnologies, in a statement. “Today that need is in the energy sector, a $500B industry in the US alone, which is experiencing revolutionary changes. Our new brand symbolizes our mission to be a global technology leader helping to bring the future of energy closer to today.”

With its new tagline, “Charging the Energy Revolution,” Altairnano aligns with the energy industry, while referencing the scale of impact the Industrial Revolution and Internet Revolution had on society.

“Altairnano’s patented lithium-titanate based battery and energy storage systems are designed to help meet the growing demands in the energy sector,” said Copeland. “With our advanced features, and with the company’s new focus, Altairnano is quite literally and figuratively charging the future of energy, enabling our partners to enter new markets not otherwise possible.”

Altairnano’s reported recent successes in line with its energy focus include a test pilot program with global power company AES, proving the efficacy of the application for frequency regulation and ancillary services. The company also recently announced the successful testing of a unique battery solution for the US Navy, designed to save $1.6M per ship annually and allowing for 960 metric tons of carbon reduction.

October 1, 2008: Enable IPC Corp. has acquired a controlling interest in SolRayo LLC, a Wisconsin technology company that develops ultracapacitor technology for improving the storage, delivery, and usage of energy. Terms of the deal are to be in exchange for in-kind contributions from a major grant to be announced shortly.

SolRayo is founded by the same scientists who developed Enable IPC’s patent-pending ultracapacitor technology. The company is currently developing new nanoparticle-based ultracapacitors for potential uses in various industrial, consumer, and automotive applications.

“This acquisition is a great opportunity for both Enable IPC and SolRayo to realize our shared goals of creating nanotechnology-based enhanced ultracapacitors to support clean energy technologies,” said Mark Daugherty, CTO of Enable IPC, who will serve as the new SolRayo president. “We are very excited to incorporate SolRayo’s exceptional talents into our company and have the opportunity to work with the researchers who know the technology best. Their new ultracapacitor materials hold great potential for improving performance, as well as lowering the cost of ultracapacitors.”

“We look forward to working with the incredible people at Enable IPC,” said SolRayo co-founder Kevin Leonard, who will stay on as CTO. “This development will provide us with the resources to continue the vital work of improving ultracapacitors and assisting in the worldwide energy crisis.”

Enable IPC’s ultracapacitor technology combines nanoparticles with common carbon sheets for a low cost, easy-to-implement technology that improves the performance of ultracapacitors so they can function as clean energy storage devices. The enhanced ultracapacitors are simpler, cheaper and longer lasting than some conventional batteries, but perform just as well in many applications.

September 18, 2008: Engineers and scientists at the U. of Texas/Austin have achieved a breakthrough in the use of graphene as a new carbon-based material for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitor devices, perhaps paving the way for the massive installation of renewable energies such as wind and solar power.

The researchers believe their breakthrough shows promise that the one-atom thick structure, a form of carbon, could eventually double the capacity of existing ultracapacitors, which are manufactured using an entirely different form of carbon.

“Through such a device, electrical charge can be rapidly stored on the graphene sheets, and released from them as well for the delivery of electrical current and, thus, electrical power,” according to Rod Ruoff, a mechanical engineering professor and a physical chemist. “There are reasons to think that the ability to store electrical charge can be about double that of current commercially used materials. We are working to see if that prediction will be borne out in the laboratory.”

Ruoff and his team from the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Texas Materials Institute at the university prepared chemically modified graphene material and, using several types of common electrolytes, have constructed and electrically tested graphene-based ultracapacitor cells. The amount of electrical charge stored per weight (i.e., “specific capacitance”) of the graphene material has already rivaled the values available in existing ultracapacitors, and modeling suggests the possibility of doubling the capacity.

Source: Nano Letters

“Our interest derives from the exceptional properties of these atom-thick and electrically conductive graphene sheets, because in principle all of the surface of this new carbon material can be in contact with the electrolyte,” according to Ruoff. “Graphene’s surface area of 2630 m²/gram — almost the area of a football field in about 1/500th of a pound of material — means that a greater number of positive or negative ions in the electrolyte can form a layer on the graphene sheets resulting in exceptional levels of stored charge.”

This technology, Stoller says, has the promise of significantly improving the efficiency and performance of electric and hybrid cars, buses, trains and trams. Even everyday devices such as office copiers and cell phones benefit from the improved power delivery and long lifetimes of ultracapacitors.

The group’s findings have been published online by the journal Nano Letters, ahead of its Oct. 8 edition.

September 16, 2008: Veeco Instruments Inc. has become a charter member in the CPV Consortium, a global industry organization that supports the development and long-term success of the concentrator photovoltaics industry, with the goal of providing a low-cost, reliable source of renewable energy.

Concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) cells, referred to as “multi-junction” or “III-V” cells, boast significantly higher efficiencies than traditional photovoltaic systems. In addition to Veeco, CPV Consortium charter members include Solfocus, 3M, Concentrix, Emcore, ISFOC and Isofoton.

“We are pleased to be a charter member of the CPV Consortium. We look forward to continued development of CPV cell manufacturing equipment and process improvements to further reduce the cost and ease of manufacturing, while improving the efficiency and reliability of CPV cells,” said Sudhakar Raman, VP of marketing for Veeco’s MOCVD operations.

“CPV cells provide energy conversion efficiencies much higher than traditional silicon cells — approximately 35% today, with planned efficiencies over the next few years moving into the 45% range, as compared to 13%-18% efficiency for silicon cells,” Raman added. “Veeco is aligned today with all of the leading CPV manufacturers to help pursue these future efficiency gains.”

The CPV Consortium is a global industry group with the charter of supporting the development and optimizing the long-term success of CPV as a mainstream source of energy. Activities of the group are focused on assuring CPV systems and installations are safe; creating confidence in performance claims; reducing confusion in the market about the technology; and assuring development of an infrastructure for rapid growth.

September 9, 2008: In a licensing agreement with Policell Technologies Inc., Planar Energy Devices Inc. has acquired technology and manufacturing rights for a new generation of safe large-format lithium ion batteries based on a bondable nanocomposite separator technology. This new cell and separator technology has a chemically engineered shutdown feature that prevents cells from triggering thermal runaway which can result in batteries catching on fire.

Safely preventing thermal runaway without reducing the capacity and cycle life of lithium ion batteries has been a major technical impediment to broader use of lithium ion energy storage. “In recent years we have seen increasing numbers of high-profile incidents where batteries catch on fire or in some cases explode,” said Planar CEO Scott Faris. “The industry has reached a crossroads where traditional approaches to increasing battery capacity have also led to decreasing safety.

Planar’s proprietary approach enables a new generation of lithium ion batteries that address both the demands of safety and capacity in a product that can be manufactured in volume.”

As a laminated flat cell structure for lithium batteries becomes more widely accepted for consumer applications, ranging from wireless devices to electric/hybrid vehicles, “safety will be the major impediment to wide scale market acceptance,” Faris said. “And Planar is committed to designing and manufacturing solid-state batteries to address this dilemma.”

Planar’s new PowerBlade line of batteries deliver high energy under heavy load, and have higher cycle life and stable cell impedance during long term cycling. The PowerBlade separator does not show any shrinkage in the battery with time or usage at high temperatures and shuts down the battery when overheated to prevent thermal runaway and battery explosion. These safety features have been verified in customer testing of large size batteries.

The addition of this technology platform is part of an ongoing strategy by Planar to acquire and consolidate key technologies that enable scalable solid-state energy storage products. “There are tremendous opportunities to leverage this new cell and membrane technology with Planar’s portfolio of solid state electrolyte and high capacity cathode materials creating exciting future products that will allow Planar to provide higher capacity batteries without sacrificing safety,” said Faris.

Planar is currently sampling PowerBlade cells to initial customers and expects to manufacture cells at its Orlando facility, making Planar one of only a handful of companies that manufacture large format lithium ion cells domestically.

According to Faris, “Planar is committed to pursuing strategies for cost-effective domestic manufacturing. We recognize that the ability to design and build world-class batteries from the United States is not only possible, but also desirable if we are to achieve energy independence as we move toward an electrical energy driven economy.”

September 8, 2008: Altair Nanotechnologies Inc., a provider of advanced nanomaterials technology used in power and energy systems and other applications, said it has completed the 500th full depth cycle of a lithium titanate battery developed for the US Navy. Altair’s $2.5 million contract is funded as part of a $3.5 million US Navy program that includes independent product testing by the Navy. Additional funding of $5 million has been approved by Congress for FY 2008.

The Mark 0 Characterization Module allows the Navy to test and better understand the unique properties of Altair batteries. For example, capacity tests show that the battery has lost only about 1% of total capacity, highlighting one of the benefits (long life) of the technology. It is anticipated that early next year Altair will deliver a 1MW battery-based energy storage demonstrator.

“This is an important milestone in our battery development,” said Terry M. Copeland, Altair‘s CEO, in a statement. “Proving out our unprecedented battery technology for a large-scale operation like a Navy destroyer paves the way for a safe, less costly, and environmentally sustainable substitute for turbines that use increasingly costly imported oil.”

With an Altair battery installed as an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), a vessel could avoid the cost of keeping the backup generator online. If there is a problem with the primary generator, the battery would provide enough power to get a second unit up and online.

“We are proud to be working with the US Navy and assisting in the launch of a new battery backup system,” continued Copeland. “Given the number of ships to which Altair’s technology could be applied, this electrical storage and rapid power delivery system could reduce the Navy’s consumption of fuel by tens of millions of gallons each year. Once proven, our technology could be used by, not only the US Navy, but commercial and foreign buyers.”

August 25, 2008: The new N_charge technology platform, developed by Nanogate AG, enables the low-cost storage of electric charges in different underlying media, such as glass, textiles, and plastics.

The charge is permanent and encompasses flexible, transparent, and printable applications, which opens up numerous possibilities, primarily in the area of energy efficiency and industrial applications – e.g., provide functional textiles with a permanent electrostatic charge, boosting their effectiveness as a filtration or separation medium.

Specific potential applications, particularly in the area of particulate filtration, have already been demonstrated. In addition, through a combination of existing properties, it is conceivable that the technology platform can be used for the low-cost construction of large, efficient energy storage devices. The technology can also be used in the area of acoustic membranes.

“With N_charge we have developed an exciting approach to the creation of storage layers, which will enable us to tap into new, high-potential application areas,” said Holger Zytur, who is responsible for functional textiles at Nanogate.

“In recent months we have succeeded in transferring technology from the laboratory to industrial-scale applications and in empirically verifying our results with selected industrial partners,” added Nanogate CEO Ralf Zastrau. “During the fourth quarter, we expect to be able to present to the public the first specific products for electrostatic systems and future-oriented filtration.”