Category Archives: Energy Storage

Nov. 28, 2006 — The Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has placed a $11.5 million dollar order for seven FEI microscopes that will form the core of the University’s new Center for Electron Nanoscopy (CEN).

The order represents the largest product sale ever for FEI and includes two Titan scanning/transmission electron microscopes (S/TEMs), a Tecnai 20S-Twin TEM, a Helios NanoLab 600 DualBeam, a Quanta 200 3D ESEM DualBeam, a Quanta FEG SEM and an Inspect S low-vacuum SEM.

The range of equipment will be utilized for a wide spectrum of advanced research conducted by DTU’s researchers and companies that operate at the university.

The company said one of the Titan S/TEMs will be equipped with an environmental chamber and will be used for collaboration between DTU and FEI to advance environmental TEM (ETEM) applications for in-situ catalyst observations.

Such studies could play an important role in catalyst research and development for alternative fuel cells, environmental catalysis (clean air and water), and petrochemical industries. In addition, some of the equipment will be used to teach entry level SEM applications for the university’s curriculum.

“Uniquely, one of the Titans at DTU will combine aberration correction and monochromation with the ability to introduce gases into the electron microscope,” said commented Rafal Dunin-Borkowski, director of the new center, in a prepared statement. “This will allow catalyst materials to be studied in their working environment with ultimate spatial resolution. Such capabilities are a big step forward for the development of new materials and nanotechnology in general.”

Installation of the systems is targeted for the second half of 2007 and DTU’s Center for Electron Nanoscopy is scheduled to open at the end of 2007.

Sending the wrong message


November 1, 2006

Dear Small Times:

I’ll start by freely admitting that FEI is a fabulous company and the Titan is an awesome piece of gear. That said, selecting the Titan as the Best of Small Tech 2006 Product of the Year in the September/October issue was not a good choice.

By choosing the Titan as Product of the Year, we’ve told the uninitiated casual observer that the most important breakthrough product in nanotechnology is one that enables nanoscale science. The message we’ve sent is “Nano is still at the research side of research and development. Don’t get too excited yet.”

Oxonica and Authentix have very real identification technologies using nano particles. Acrymed is one of several companies using nanotechnology in anti-microbial applications. Fuel cells, catalytic devices, MEMS applications… The list goes on and on. Very real products are becoming better because of what nanotechnology has to offer.

FEI gets my vote for “big influential company that actually cares about nano science” and the Titan is clearly the winner of “nanotechnology enabler of the year”. What about picking a product next year that’s actually better because of nanotechnology? Maybe we could pick one that: 1) used nanotechnology; 2) got better; 3) gained some market share, and; 4) rewarded the investors that took the risk.

Les Makepeace
Senior Vice President, LITMUS Defense

Interview with EOPlex


November 1, 2006

Screen Printing on a Micro Scale

By Julia Goldstein, Ph.D.

It wasn’t exactly the Roadshow, but I visited a fascinating start-up company and spoke with Arthur Chait, CEO; and Anwar Mohammed, VP of manufacturing and operations, about EoPlex Technologies, headquartered in Redwood City, CA. They’re pioneering a technology that uses screen printing to extrude layers of metals, ceramics, or polymers to produce components for a wide variety of applications.


Figure 1. CEO Arthur Chait in his office.
Click here to enlarge image

Chait explained that his company aims to fill the gap in the market between nanoscale and large-scale components, changing the design rules to enable new products. They consider their technology an alternative to micromachining or injection molding. Multiple materials can be printing within a single component, and products are designed to contain active elements that do mechanical, chemical, or electrical work. While Chait can envision an array of possible applications, EoPlex is making prototypes in four areas: fuel cells, energy harvesting, micro-reactors, and thermal energy management.

One critical application is fuel cells for emergency radios. EoPlex has designed a “chemical plant” contained within a square of ceramic about 2" on a side and ¼" thick. The part doesn’t look impressive, but the internal structure consists of 300 layers that include catalyst, ceramic, and metal materials. When alcohol is introduced through an external port, a reaction begins that can power a radio without the use of batteries. An emergency worker need only carry a squirt bottle of alcohol to keep a radio going for a week.


Figure 2. Loc Tran, process technician; and Alex Mandaliya, senior process engineer, examining parts in the microscope
Click here to enlarge image

Micro-reactors, using similar technology to fuel cells, can be used to manufacture drugs or chemicals. Gases enter through one port and the product comes out through another. Though each reactor can produce only a small amount of material at a time, multiple micro-reactors could be linked together to scale-up manufacturing.

Energy harvesting is another application – harnessing, for example, the vibration energy from automobile tires to self-power a tire pressure sensor using piezoelectricity – eliminating the need for a battery. The sensor could be the size of a dime and embedded in the tire tread, sending a wireless signal to the car’s computer.

The application closest to the concerns of packaging engineers is thermal management. A heat spreader or micro-fluidic structure can be built into an IC, limiting the need for heat dissipation at the package level. The current focus is on high-power LEDs, but other types of devices could make use of the technology. A thin square of diamond could be fired within a ceramic structure, positioned directly under the hot spot in a microprocessor, at an estimated cost of 36 cents.


Figure 3. Heatsink.
Click here to enlarge image

EoPlex’s manufacturing process starts by forming “inks” – pastes based on metal, ceramic, or polymer powders that are then extruded through specially designed printing plates to form layers 10- to 25-µm thick in a large panel format. This is the “active” material. Each layer needs to form a planar surface, so a fugitive, or sacrificial material, is extruded in a pattern that is the negative of the active material design. Fugitive materials must be individually tailored to match the properties of the active material in the layer, since the two must be cured together. Subsequent layers are applied, up to several hundred for a finished component, and then the entire assembly is sintered. Firing can be done in air, nitrogen, hydrogen, or vacuum, or some combination of these, depending on the material set. The fugitive materials evaporate or diffuse through the active materials during the sintering process while the active material densifies, leaving a structure that can include a wide range of geometric features, even moving parts. Since the entire component is sintered in a single step, the set of materials needs to be compatible in terms of coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), shrinkage, and other properties. Most of EoPlex’s IP is in materials development, and as Mohammed said, “every week new materials are being created.”

Oct. 17, 2006 — The New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR) has awarded a grant of nearly $2 million to the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany to help spur development of an Energy Test Farm that will enable innovative research on renewable energy technologies and generate significant economic impact.

The $1,922,000 award, made as part of NYSTAR’s Center for Advanced Technology Development Program, will support the efforts of CNSE’s Center for Advanced Technology in Nanomaterials and Nanoelectronics. The funding will be used to expand the capabilities of the CATN2 by creating an Energy Test Farm to evaluate zero energy concepts, based on the development and testing of nanomaterials and nanoelectronics for clean energy technologies, such as fuel cells, solar photovoltaic cells, ultracapacitors and power electronics.

The research will be conducted by CNSE in collaboration with several New York-based alternative energy companies, including DayStar Technologies of Halfmoon (solar photovoltaics), Plug Power Inc. of Latham (fuel cells), MTech Laboratories of Ballston Spa (power electronics) and Custom Electronics Inc. of Oneonta (ultracapacitors). The research is expected to develop new business opportunities for those firms, while at the same time attracting additional interest and investment from clean energy companies around the world.

By Jim Dukart
NanoCon Show Daily

Sept. 22 2006 — If Wednesday’s opening day of NanoCon 2006 was primarily about the overall picture for nanotechnology in the near-term future, Thursday turned greater attention to specific instances of nanotech applications and developments today.

Mark Verbrugge, director of the materials and processes laboratory for General Motors Research & Development Center, started the show with a presentation of current developments driving nanotech in the automotive world. Two key areas Verbrugge focused on were energy storage and automotive materials.

On the issue of energy storage, he presented the challenges facing car makers who are eager to develop hybrid vehicles or — eventually — fully electric or hydrogen-powered cars and trucks.

One of the toughest challenges comes in moving hydrogen in and out of storage (vehicle fuel tanks). Nanotechnology, he said, promises to help via nanocrystalline magnesium-nickle particles that feature larger surface area, and thus faster absorption, than today’s prevalent automotive technology. Similarly, nanotechnology as applied to car batteries presents smaller particles and thus increased surface area within batteries, speeding up electrochemical processes and thus reducing voltage loss.

The goal, Verbrugge said, will be to produce vehicles that are more fuel efficient, lighter and also have improved thermoelectric waste heat recovery. At the same time, carmakers must develop systems that allow consumers to refuel (or recharge) less frequently than is now required of prototype electric or hydrogen vehicles.

Carl Kohrt, president and CEO of scientific research management organization Battelle, followed Verbrugge with comments about the worldwide growth of nanotech plus observations on current and near-term future nanotech applications.

Kohrt said recent developments in nanotech tools and nano-science are allowing companies and research institutions to dream up solutions that seemed impossible just a few years ago. He added the point that relatively low barriers to entry — compared to, say, space exploration — mean companies in smaller countries such as Singapore and Ireland are able to participate in the nanotech revolution.

Kohrt focused on three major areas he sees for nanotech processes and applications. First, in the energy sector, he sees significant efficiency gains for solar panels with the development and implementation of nano photovoltaics, using metal-oxide nanorods coated in polymers that both increase light absorption and improve electron affinity. Though many of these solar cells are still at the experimental stage, he predicted improvements of up to 30 percent in solar cell efficiency in the coming months.

Kohrt called the global need for clean water a “mega-issue” for the 21st century, noting that nanotechnology promises to aid in addressing both biological and chemical contaminants in drinking water supplies. The third area that Kohrt addressed was that of national security.

Nanotechnology offers some very promising solutions to many problems,” Kohrt concluded. “Are those problems totally solved? No. But at least we can start to see some solutions. Do we hope there will be other problems that nanotechnology can solve? Yes.”

Finally, Kohrt extolled nanotech participants and observers to look not specifically at given products, but rather at platforms from which many different solutions can be derived.

Those platforms were the subject of two more presentations Thursday, including one by David Gusdorf, director of development for the Washington Technology Center (WTC) and Don Montgomery, president and CEO of Nanomaterials Discovery Corp. (NDC).

Both spoke about how their partnership was instrumental in bringing to market a lower density microelectrode array chip for evaluating nanomaterials for battery operations, something NDC had an interest in doing but could not have done without the facilities and resources offered by the Washington Technology Center.

As a small company, Montgomery explained, NDC did not have the on-staff expertise or resources it would have needed to develop the chip itself. “We needed the support of the WTC to help us develop a promising opportunity,” he said. “It helped me avoid bringing on an experienced and expensive electrical engineering staff.”

WTC, Gusdorf countered, was able to not only provide the tools, support and research focus that NDC lacked, but also served as an important link, offering access to researchers at nearby universities in the Seattle area as well as sources for government and public support.

The morning’s final session featured a “role play” in which moderator Michael Lefenfeld, CEO of SiGNa Chemistry, asked panelists to guide him through the process of intellectual property protection for a new and promising nanotech technology or application. The panelists offered a range of advice to Lefenfeld, pointing out both the opportunities and a few of the potential pitfalls of sharing a promising invention or technology with other groups.

Aug. 17, 2006 – Siargo Ltd. of Santa Clara, Calif., announced the release of its low power MEMS sensors for fuel cell systems, including a gas mass flow sensor for solid oxide fuel cells and a methanol concentration sensor for direct methanol fuel cells.

The flow sensor measures the temperature redistribution of the sensor surface which depends on the media’s mass as well as the media’s flow speed. The company says its sensors are well suited to the application because they consume less power while offering good accuracy and response time.

The methanol concentration sensor measures a full range of methanol’s concentration in water from 0 percent to 100 percent with real-time, in-line measurement capability. The typical maximum power consumed is 15mW.

The company is now offering single or multi-channel packaged evaluation sensor units that fuel cell system customers can integrate into their products.

June 30, 2006 – Nanosys Inc., Palo Alto, CA, says it has expanded collaboration with both Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Inc. on development of nanostructures for high-density NAND flash memory, targeting consumer electronics and portable storage applications.

The company already was working with Intel to incorporate its technology into Intel’s roadmap for nonvolatile memory, noted Ed So, VP and director of Intel’s California Technology and Manufacturing, in a statement. Last year Intel and Micron formed a JV, IM Flash Technologies, to manufacture NAND flash. “Nanosys’ technology offers a very practical and promising approach towards addressing the continued scaling needs of the fast-growing non-volatile memory market,” stated Frankie Roohparvar, VP of NAND development at Micron.

Nanosys claims its nanotechnology-enabled memory technology, compatible with current manufacturing processes and equipment, allows for higher storage densities, lower cost-per-bit, and improved reliability. The company’s technology platform incorporates high-performance inorganic nanostructures, covered by roughly 450 patent and patent applications. Its product development programs include nonvolatile memory for electronic devices, as well as work with Sharp on nanostructures for displays and fuel cells for portable electronics, and with In-Q-Tel for nanotechnology-enabled phased array antennas.

Founded in 2001, Nanosys raised $40 million in a private equity financing in November 2005, helped by In-Q-Tel and Intel Capital, after withdrawing a planned $100 million IPO in August 2004.

June 9, 2006 – Zyvex of Richardson, Texas, and Arkema of Paris announced their intention to strengthen their strategic partnership by jointly developing commercial nanomaterials applications.

Through a new licensing arrangement, Arkema will use Zyvex’s patented Kentera dispersion technology in conjunction with its own multiwall carbon nanotubes. Arkema will also be the exclusive distributor in Europe of Zyvex’s NanoSolve product line.

Arkema produces and distributes high-quality multiwall nanotubes (MWNT). Its production capabilities, opened at the beginning of 2006, currently enable Arkema to manufacture 10 tons per year of high-purity MWNTs at its Lacq, France, site. With this new facility, Arkema is planning a commercial development to fulfill the expectations of converters in the thermoplastics, epoxy resins, elastomers and coating sectors. Progress is also expected in the field of energy in which the use of carbon nanotubes should help manufacture energy-efficient batteries, super-capacitors and fuel cells.

May 23, 2006 – Mobile handsets, the second largest market for semiconductors after PCs, also presents big opportunities for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), with consumption poised to soar from $157 million in 2005 to more than $1.0 billion by 2010, according to a new report from In-Stat Inc.

Microphones and bulk acoustic resonators have dominated the MEMS market, but opportunities are emerging for inertial sensors (i.e., accelerometers) and various RF components, the market research firm said. MEMS mode/band switches and digital tuning should show up in mobile handsets in 2007, followed by MEMS-based oscillators in the following year. Growth also is promising for microphones as demand increases for ultrathin handsets, and as prices for these devices goes down.

“Although high-volume MEMS, such as microphones and bulk acoustic resonators, are cost competitive, there are no near-term opportunities for other types of MEMS to break into the mobile handset market based on price advantage,” stated Frank Dickson, senior director for semiconductors and converging markets, In-Stat. Other types of MEMS devices such as displays and fuel cells could also develop a price advantage, he said, but suppliers “may find a quicker path to profit in other markets that have less demanding cost and size requirements.”

April 14, 2006 – PolyFuel Inc., a developer of engineered membranes for fuel cells, announced that it has entered into an agreement to provide Johnson Matthey with the PolyFuel hydrocarbon direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) membrane intended for fuel cells to power portable devices.

Johnson Matthey will use these membranes in the manufacture of catalyst coated membranes and membrane electrode assemblies. Under the agreement, Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells will be a PolyFuel “channel partner” and will purchase PolyFuel’s DMFC hydrocarbon membranes to manufacture a variety of products for the portable fuel cell market.

PolyFuel first launched its hydrocarbon membrane technology for the portable fuel cell market in early 2004.