More and more giant corporations are buying into printed electrics by acquiring companies partly or wholly in the field. The world's second largest chemical company Dow bought Rohm & Haas (materials), 3M bought into Printechnologics (printed patterns read by mobile phones) and DuPont bought Innovalight (nanosilicon layers to increase photovoltaic efficiency). Now there is interest in traction batteries for electric vehicles, where the third generation technology, that with the highest energy density and little if any dependence on rare metals, increasingly involves solid state assemblies made by printing reel to reel. Oxis Energy in the UK is developing polymer lithium sulphur technology for example as an independent startup. However, Sion Power in the USA has other forms of lithium sulphur battery actually driving Unmanned Aerial vehicles AUVs and military land vehicles. The press release says that Sion Power Corporation, the global leader in the development of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, based in Tucson, Arizona, recently announced that BASF invested $50 million to acquire an equity ownership position in the company.
This equity partnership expands upon an existing joint development agreement that BASF Future Business GmbH established with Sion Power in 2009 to accelerate the commercialization of Sion's proprietary Li-S battery technology for electric and plug-in electric vehicles and other high-energy applications over the next decade. John Kopera, Sion's Vice President Commercial Operations, expressed, "The light weight and high energy characteristics of Sion's lithium sulfur battery technology, that enabled the achievement of the unrefueled flight endurance world record for unmanned aerial vehicles, will be keys to success for the next generation of electric vehicles."
"Advanced cathodes, anodes and other battery materials are key enabling technologies for battery performance," noted Ralf Meixner, BASF's Senior Vice President, Battery Materials. "Through our investment and collaboration with Sion, we are positioned to take a leadership role in developing next-generation battery material solutions, further supporting the effort to make electric cars affordable, environmentally friendly and sustainable."
For more attend Electric Vehicles Land Sea Air USA 2012 ,where uniquely we reflect the new realities that there are now six key enabling technologies and they are competing in all forms of EV, hybrid, pure electric and land, water and airborne, manned and unmanned. Speakers from ten countries detail the situation in their parts of the world including SYNPER 3 from Singapore, first to fly an electric helicopter recently, showing how up to 35% of helicopter crashes could be avoided with hybrid electric technology. Sun Yat-Sen University China and Germany Trade & Invest detail their national situations. Next generation batteries are covered by Robert Bosch (Bosch Group) of Germany, Oxis Energy UK and speakers from Canada and the USA. OLEV Technologies will show how to continuously pick up power, Schneider Electric of France how modern charging infrastructure is a system not boxes. There will be two presentations on supercapacitor breakthroughs - here is the future. See the full picture, with best-in-class speakers from across the whole world - Slovenia to Gibraltar, China to Canada, each carefully chosen by IDTechEx because of their leadership. There are two presentations on agricultural EVs and four on electric aircraft including Boeing and Airbus involvement. Other presenters include BMW (cars etc), Mitsubishi Motors (small commercial vehicles and cars), Daimler AG (commercial and military vehicles and cars) and Toyota (leader in electric forklifts, cars, buses but also presenting on its fuel cell vehicle program.) Uniquely, a large number of electric vehicle manufacturers not seen in conventional EV events will present including iRobot Corporation Autonomous Underwater Vehicles AUVs (better known for EVs as robot vacuum cleaners). Mission Motors and two others focus on electric motor cycles. Many manufacturers of industrial, commercial, military, cars and other EVs will be there. Come to this event where you avoid the usual speakers with nothing new to say and meet people new and useful to you without doing a lot of travelling to find them. Apply for an award.
