Ultrafast carbon electrode from NAWA Technologies to bring quantum leap in battery performance

According to the newspress , NAWA Technologies announced that

  • Breakthrough technology, based on patented Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotube (VACNT) design, will bring revolutionary improvements in power, energy, lifecycle and charging time
  • NAWA’s Ultra Fast Carbon Electrode is the fastest in the world, combining highest ionic, electrical and thermal conductivity
  • Revolutionary nano-sized 3D design means batteries are no longer limited by powder-based systems; increased performance for all batteries, particularly those in electric vehicles
  • Technology can improve power by a factor of 10, energy storage by up to three, lifecycle by up to five and reduce charging time down to minutes instead of hours
  • Can be used with existing and advanced new battery chemistries; improved safety and more eco-friendly with less reliance on rare-earth materials too
  • NAWA’s design can bring significant cost savings – electrodes account for almost 25 per cent of the cost of a battery while today’s global lithium-ion battery market is worth in excess of $35 billion

Who is NAWA Technologies?

According to its homepage, the company profile of NAWA Technologies is described as

Our vision is to develop technologies that enable highly efficient energy transition, And the key to this is our Ultra Fast Carbon Battery Technology. At NAWA Technologies, we are developing new solutions that improve energy conversion, storage, transport and efficiency by using carbon as the material of choice. Carbon is abundant, accessible and naturally occurring. Minimizing the environmental impact of our manufacturing processes and improving the life cycle end of our products, by re-using, recovering and recycling is at the heart of what we do.

Created in April 2013, NAWA Technologies benefits from over 15 years of R&D work on nanomaterials. Today, NAWA Technologies, strengthened by its 24 employees, has its own pilot production line and creates new interface materials and an innovative generation of ultracapacitors and batteries electrodes.

What is supercapacitor?

According to the webpage in ARROW ECS, supercapacitor is defined as

In short, supercapacitors are high-capacity capacitors. They have higher capacitance and lower voltage limits than other types of capacitors, and functionally, they lie somewhere in between electrolytic capacitors and rechargeable batteries.

What this means in practice is that they:

  • Charge much faster than batteries
  • Can store much more energy than electrolytic capacitors
  • Have a lifespan (measured in charge/discharge cycles) somewhere between the two (more than rechargeable batteries and less than electrolytic capacitors)

For a lifespan comparison, consider that while electrolytic capacitors have an unlimited number of charge cycles, lithium-ion batteries average between 500 and 10,000 cycles. Supercapacitors, however, have a lifespan ranging from 100,000 to a million cycles.

Supercapacitor can be one of the solutions in the next generation

In 21st century, we, human beings, face many big obstacles such as climate change, inequality, poverty, sustainability. Then, we take several initiatives to solve these obstacles and one of them is to make Electric Vehicles more available and affordable for everyone in the world. However, there are many technical challenges including the cost of lithium ion batteries, unsafety characteristics of them, charging time, and cruising range. Therefore, supercapacitor can be one of the solutions for these problems and we have to pay attention to the progress of its development even though it is still research and development stage.

Posted on By tttuc Battery Posted in Battery