Developing an economy that produces net zero carbon emissions not only involves “capturing” carbon dioxide but changing it and putting it to use in new forms.&nbsp;Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are heavily in the business of “carbon conversion” with multiple projects working on systems to pull carbon dioxide in and put it to good use.Most recently, the Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $29 million in grants for “carbon management” technologies, including $1.5 million of those funds going to&nbsp;<a href="https://engineering.washu.edu/faculty/Xinhua-Liang.html">Xinhua Liang,</a> professor of energy, environmental &amp; chemical engineering in WashU's McKelvey School of Engineering.&nbsp;Previously, Liang&nbsp;<a href="https://engineering.washu.edu/news/2023/Carbon-negative-concrete-products-to-be-formed-from-upcycled-waste.html">received $2 million from the DOE</a> to convert CO2 to concrete products, and this continues that work, with a twist. Liang and his colleagues have developed a thermocatalytic process that could yield useful parts for increasingly ubiquitous lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars and other devices. Liang will fine-tune this process with his co-principal investigator, Miao Yu, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University at Buffalo.&nbsp;The grant will fund Liang’s development of a low-carbon process to convert CO2 to valuable high-quality carbon nanotubes (CNTs). These nanotubes have “similar properties as commercial CNTs,” noted Liang, making them not only useful as potential anodes in batteries but doing so at a much more affordable price, a key component to scaling up these technologies.&nbsp;Lithium-ion batteries are composed of three main components: the anode (negative terminal), cathode (positive terminal) and electrolyte solution in between. The cathodes are typically made of lithium metal oxide, but the anode uses graphite, which is a form of carbon. CNTs are expected to have better performance than graphite as an anode material in lithium-ion batteries. But CNTs can be expensive to apply.But with Liang’s thermocatalytic process, they’ve drastically reduced that expense. They are taking CO2, converting it into an intermediate molecule and then a final conversion to a carbon nanotube with high capacity and high conductivity that makes it ideal for batteries. Carbon nanotubes can also be used in making composite metals and can be used in polymers and concrete products that Liang is also working on.“In order to commercialize this process, there is still a long way to go,” he adds.They will deliver a laboratory-scale prototype system capable of producing 20 grams per day of CNTs, according to the grant. Liang estimates that it could be ready for commercial use in a decade.&nbsp;But so far, they have found a way to lower the cost of CNT production from $100 per kilogram to less than $10.“This is the main advantage of our technology,” Liang said.

A 3D rendering of a carbon nanotube. Carbon dioxide can be turned into carbon nanotubes for use in lithium ion batteries and other potential products. (Image: Shutterstock)

A researcher at Washington University in St. Louis has received a grant of $1.5 million to convert CO2 into carbon nanotubes that could be used in lithium-ion batteries

Converting CO2 to solid carbon yields benefits for batteries and more

This is the definitive technical comparison between Junction Field-Effect Transistors and metal-oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors. This in-depth analysis covers operational physics, performance metrics, and practical implementation guidelines for electronic design engineers.

JFET vs MOSFET: A Comprehensive Engineering Analysis and Selection Guide

<section id="isPasted">When early humans learned to harness fire for heat around 400,000 years ago, it marked a monumental turning point in mankind’s history. Heat is used for various purposes in the modern age, particularly in manufacturing, including refining, steel, cement, pulp and paper. The fossil fuels used to generate heat in these manufacturing sectors generate substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Hence, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) is now heavily investing in alternative technologies for heat generation. Under the Manufacturing USA initiative, the DOE has made a significant stride by awarding $70 million to the&nbsp;<a href="https://epixc.org/">Electrified Processes for Industry without Carbon (EPIXC) Institute</a>. This institute, led by Arizona State University and with key partnerships with national labs and universities, including Texas A&amp;M University, is a beacon of hope for the future of electrified heating technologies. EPIXC's funding, through the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office, is a testament to the promising future of these technologies. “A significant portion of the heat used in manufacturing is currently generated by burning fossil fuels,” explained Dr. Mark Barteau, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering and C. D. Holland ’53 Chair at Texas A&amp;M. “However, with the potential of abundant carbon-free energy in the future, we could revolutionize the industry by using electrical energy for heating, thereby significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” Texas A&amp;M is a core partner in EPIXC through the leadership of the&nbsp;<a href="https://energy.tamu.edu/">Texas A&amp;M Energy Institute</a>. Texas A&amp;M researchers will contribute across the EPIXC mission, including development of a “roadmap” for decarbonization of manufacturing processes. The five-year program will be initiated with a two-year “jumpstart” project devoted to developing innovative electrified heating technologies for propane dehydrogenation, a chemical process for converting propane to propylene, a material that has several commercial applications, such as producing plastics, solvents and other chemicals. As the name suggests, propane dehydrogenation involves the selective removal of two hydrogen atoms from a propane feedstock to make propylene. This reaction takes place in the presence of catalysts to speed up the reaction. But propane dehydrogenation is an endothermic reaction, which means that the chemical reaction consumes heat, which currently comes from burning fossil fuels. With their funding, Barteau and his team aim to (1) develop electrified chemical processes and (2) establish a program for workforce development for manufacturing personnel and researchers. His team, including Dr. Micah Green and Dr. Benjamin Willhite both professors in the chemical engineering department, is currently developing a reactor based on internal radiofrequency (RF) heating of the propane dehydrogenation catalyst. &nbsp;A reason for using RF is to achieve good radiation penetration depth; that is, the radiation can reach inside the chemical reactor and create uniform heating temperatures. Thus, the team will work on reactor designs that best match the source of electrical energy put into the system.</section><blockquote>A significant portion of the heat used in manufacturing is currently generated by burning fossil fuels. However, with the potential of abundant carbon-free energy in the future, we could revolutionize the industry by using electrical energy for heating, thereby significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.<cite>- Dr. Mark Barteau</cite></blockquote><section>Another challenge that Barteau will be addressing is scaling these technologies from the laboratory to pilot-scale demonstrations and, ultimately, deployment in the field.&nbsp;“A world-scale propane dehydrogenation plant will make about 600,000 metric tons of propylene per year. Electrified processes will need to be operable at that scale since these plants will require large amounts of clean electricity,” said Barteau. “This energy could be generated on-site, or it could be generated elsewhere and transmitted.” The project could reduce CO2 emissions by 0.3 metric tons per metric ton of propylene produced and increase propylene yields by up to 10%. The team will be further strengthened by the participation of two key members from the Texas A&amp;M Energy Institute leadership: Dr. Stratos Pistikopoulos, professor of chemical engineering and director of the Texas A&amp;M Energy Institute, Dr. Konstantinos Pappas, associate director at the energy institute. Their expertise will significantly contribute to the development of training curricula for workforce development, drawing upon the institute’s modular concept of its renowned educational program. As climate change and global warming threaten the planet, Texas A&amp;M and partners at EPIXC will strive to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels for heat generation and decarbonize industries by developing technologies to electrify process heating. The successful implementation of these electrified processes could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing, contributing to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly industrial sector. Funding for this research is administered by the Texas A&amp;M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), the official research agency for Texas A&amp;M Engineering.</section>

Texas A&M researchers will conduct a two-year “jumpstart” project devoted to developing electrified heating technologies.

Moving Toward an Electrified Solution to Generate Heat for Manufacturing Industries

Explore Voltera's innovative project to create a seven-layer magnesium-zinc battery using printable technology. Developed with Saral Designs and employing the NOVA system, the project focuses on building lightweight, flexible, and environmentally friendly batteries on PET substrates.

The Future of Batteries is Flexible: Printing a Magnesium Zinc Battery with Saral Inks on PET

This article was discussed in our <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" rel="noopener noreferrer">Next Byte podcast</a>.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/0c6e89ec-2577-48b1-81ca-2b54787cba8e?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> The full article will continue below.<hr>In 2024, more than one in five cars sold is an electric vehicle (EV). Intergovernmental agencies estimate that by 2035, <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2024/outlook-for-electric-mobility" target="_blank" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="df17f5fe-cbc3-4e3c-86ce-928e3a540089" data-entity-substitution="canonical">half of all new cars sold globally will be EVs</a>.&nbsp;While more EVs on the road sounds like great news for the environment, it could lead to complications. The electric grid is not yet ready to support the EV influx, and unaddressed capacity limitations could threaten the future of the EV industry.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzI5MDM4NTYxNjgxLWV2LWZlYXR1cmUtMS5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">David Taylor, professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE); Kartik Sastry, a recent ECE Ph.D. graduate; and Michael Leamy, Woodruff Professor and director of Graduate Studies in the School of Mechanical Engineering.Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a device to help avoid grid overload: a revolutionary EV smart-charging system.&nbsp;Their optimization-based approach would not only help reduce grid stress but also enable users to customize the charging process and minimize cost, prioritize the use of carbon-free energy, or adjust the charging speed. The technology might even help promote the EV industry.&nbsp;“The EV revolution is happening so quickly that electrical utilities will find it difficult and costly to update the grid fast enough to accommodate these vehicles,” said <a href="https://research.gatech.edu/node/36005" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="df17f5fe-cbc3-4e3c-86ce-928e3a540089" data-entity-substitution="canonical">Michael J. Leamy</a>, Woodruff Professor and director of Graduate Studies in the <a href="https://www.me.gatech.edu/">George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering</a>. “We wanted to investigate a way of smart charging that considers EVs as they converge on the electric grid, which we already know is near its maximum capacity. We need to buy time for the grid operators so they aren’t overwhelmed when more EVs enter the market.”<h2 id="isPasted">Taking a Load Off (the Grid)</h2>In the southeastern U.S., during the summertime, power use peaks from late afternoon to early evening. By then, the heat of the sun has warmed up homes and buildings, and people have cranked up their air conditioners. This is also when most people come home from work and plug in their EVs, which immediately start charging. When plugged in, an EV can easily be the most significant consumer of power in a home.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzI5MDM4NTk2OTQ5LWV2LWZlYXR1cmUtMy5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The smart charger minimizes stress on the electric grid by using algorithms to distribute charging over time.“A bunch of EVs charging during the peak power load can be problematic for utilities, exacerbating electricity demand and overloading the grid,” said <a href="https://kartik.ece.gatech.edu/">Kartik Sastry</a>, a recent Ph.D. graduate in the <a href="https://ece.gatech.edu/">School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)</a> and co-inventor of the technology. “But you don’t need to start charging as soon as you come home. In most cases, there’s ample time overnight to fully charge electric vehicles.”&nbsp;The team set out to address the issue of grid overload by taking advantage of overnight surplus charging time. They developed cutting-edge optimization algorithms to distribute charging over time, thereby minimizing grid stresses while offering benefits to consumers.&nbsp;Rather than charging at full speed as soon as an EV is plugged in, the team’s smart-charging algorithms allow for gradual charging, or charging at several intervals over time rather than all at once. The algorithms also decrease the maximum power draw of a home during charging, achieving what the researchers call “peak shaving.”&nbsp;The algorithm itself plans the charging and when it will occur, based on the state of the grid and consumer preferences. The system also makes these decisions without the need for any centralized control, and without communicating with other vehicles in the neighborhood or city.&nbsp;“By using random timing and predictions of household power usage, our algorithm can effectively distribute the load,” said <a href="https://research.gatech.edu/node/36240" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="8797f559-5d41-4aea-afa6-46ef49f0b6e2" data-entity-substitution="canonical">David G. Taylor</a>, ECE professor and co-inventor of the charging system. “This means that the number of EVs in a community can increase without the local utility incurring huge expenses for infrastructure upgrades, provided these EVs use the smart charging algorithm we've developed.”<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzI5MDM4NjUzNzM1LWltYWdlcyAoMSkuanBlZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><h2 id="isPasted">Customizable Charging</h2>The system allows consumers to customize their charging. Using an app the team designed, a consumer can control four different facets of charging: cost, carbon-free energy, speed, and battery health. The app’s slider widgets allow a user to weigh their preferences for each; based on the user’s selections, the algorithm determines how best to charge the vehicle while minimizing grid impact.&nbsp;For example, to charge their vehicle quickly, a user would move the charging-speed slider all the way to the right. Prioritizing carbon-free charging, on the other hand, programs the charger to only charge the car when renewable resources such as wind or solar are available on the grid. Choosing to charge at the lowest cost would prompt the system to charge at low-demand times based on a utility’s price schedule, allowing the user to avoid any demand charges.<h2 id="isPasted">Driving Forward</h2><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzI5MDM4NjgwOTY5LWV2LWZlYXR1cmUtMi5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The team plans to demonstrate how their smart-charging algorithms can reduce costs for entire fleets of electric vehicles.The team has published several research articles about the project in major journals. They have also built prototype hardware, completed charging case studies with individual EVs, and submitted a patent for the technology.&nbsp;Expanding beyond the system’s applications for individual consumers, the team has also developed this technology to function in commercial settings. They hope to collaborate with an EV charging station company and a public school system that uses EV buses to demonstrate how their algorithms automatically reduce fleet charging costs.&nbsp;The goal, Leamy says, is for companies to license their smart-charging algorithm technology.The researchers are also reaching out to auto companies to have their technology incorporated into EVs themselves, which would allow users to set their charging preferences right from their dashboard.&nbsp;“We hope to demonstrate that smart charging is feasible on a large scale — and also measure the benefits of doing so,” Leamy said. “We plan to show how much money consumers, companies, and school systems can save with smart charging rather than simply charging in an ad hoc fashion.”“We anticipate a significant uptick in EV adoption, which will lead to higher demand on the grid,” Sastry said. “To protect the grid and help the EV industry thrive, we must accommodate these EVs in a smart way, and that’s what we hope to achieve.”

The EV smart charger allows users to customize their charging, with the ability to weight preferences for carbon-free energy, cost, charge speed, and battery health. Credit: Allison Carter

The revolutionary system allows for cheaper, carbon-free charging and aims to reduce the burden on the electric grid as more EVs enter the roadway.

New Smart Charger May Pave the Way for More EVs

Power surges can be more destructive than outages and cause significant damage to electrical devices and systems, regardless of their origin or cause. This could be disastrous for your business, resulting in huge losses. Any commercial enterprise that depends on motors, high-voltage machinery, security systems, or modern electronics and equipment is at risk. Some of the most vulnerable equipment includes:<ul><li dir="ltr">Manufacturing machinery</li><li dir="ltr">Security systems and fire alarms</li><li dir="ltr">Elevators and escalators</li><li dir="ltr">Telecommunications equipment</li><li dir="ltr">Computers, printers and other electronics</li><li dir="ltr">Retail POS systems</li></ul>Fortunately, commercial surge protection provides a solution for this problem. So let’s look at how to use it and what surge protection options are available.<h2 dir="ltr">What Causes A Power Surge?</h2>Electrical power is supplied to your premises at a designated flow rate, but sometimes, there’ll be a spike in the supply. This causes the voltage to increase temporarily in a surge of excess power. This might happen for several reasons, including:<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1728910925806-1728910925806.png" alt="Electrical Surge" class="fr-fic fr-dii"><ul><li dir="ltr">momentary power outages/circuit overload</li><li dir="ltr">exposed or damaged wiring</li><li dir="ltr">lightning or other external factors&nbsp;</li></ul><h3 dir="ltr">Momentary Power Outages/Circuit Overload</h3>Short-term power outages sometimes occur as a result of electrical overload, which momentarily&nbsp;<a title="Trips The Circuit" href="https://www.rowse.co.uk/blog/post/what-causes-circuit-breakers-to-trip" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">trips the circuit</a>. This might happen in premises with multiple high-demand devices like air-conditioners or lifts that are all simultaneously in use. Frequent sudden spikes in electrical demand will sometimes result in a voltage surge that can cause considerable damage.&nbsp;<h3 dir="ltr">Exposed Or Damaged Wiring&nbsp;</h3>This isn’t only dangerous but can lead to frequent internal power surges. If you notice a burning smell or warm outlets in your electronic devices, switches or sockets, you must fix them immediately. If you don’t, you run the risk of short-circuiting, shocks, fires or burns.<h3 dir="ltr">Lightning Or Other External Factors</h3>Lightning can cause a power surge so great that it creates blackouts, outages and even fires. It can destroy your electronic equipment and any machinery plugged into the mains. Similar damage may result from other weather conditions like snowstorms, thunderstorms and extreme temperatures. Even animals and falling trees can cause electrical surges if they hit the power lines or chew on cables. This may lead to exposed and damaged wiring, with similar results.<h2 dir="ltr">Why Is Commercial Surge Protection So Important?&nbsp;</h2>Not every power surge will wreak this much havoc. Voltage in most commercial premises typically fluctuates every day. Every time you switch on any electrical equipment, there’ll be a brief power spike. It may only last for a millisecond or two, which isn’t particularly significant. But over time, these spikes can have a cumulative effect that weakens your electrical equipment and may eventually damage it.If the incoming voltage exceeds an acceptable level, a typical surge protector diverts the excess current through the electrical outlets into whatever devices are plugged in. It is thus safely dispersed into the outlets’ grounding wires.&nbsp;&nbsp;You can get a variety of surge protection devices, ranging from small domestic versions to large-scale industrial types. All your electrical equipment should be plugged into the surge protector rather than directly into the electrical outlet.In default of surge protection, best practice dictates always unplugging any electrical or electronic devices not in use, as surges can affect a connected device even if it’s switched off. Regular maintenance is also necessary to fix minor issues with your electrical systems and wiring and ensure they’re safe under the requirements of&nbsp;<a title="Electricity At Work Act" href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1989/635/contents" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">The Electricity at Work Act 1989</a>.&nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr">Why It’s A Good Idea To Invest In Commercial Surge Protectors</h2>The most obvious reason to invest in commercial surge protectors is that they safeguard your facility and equipment from damage. By regulating the flow of electricity, you prevent circuits from malfunctioning and fuses blowing. Your electronic devices and manufacturing equipment will be safe from electrical overload and your business operations will continue to run without interruption, preventing costly downtime.You’ll also be complying with the statutory requirements of&nbsp;<a title="BS" href="https://knowledge.bsigroup.com/products/requirements-for-electrical-installations-iet-wiring-regulations-3?version=standard" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">BS 7671:2018</a>, the IET wiring regulations that apply to protection against transient over-voltages. You won’t need surge protection for small electrical items like desk lamps, but it’s essential for protecting industrial equipment and electronic devices with delicate microprocessors.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1728910925709-1728910925709.png" alt="Power Plant" class="fr-fic fr-dii"><h3 dir="ltr">Commercial Surge Protector Types&nbsp;</h3>There are three main types of commercial surge protectors available:Type 1 acts as a buffer between the electrical grid and your power distribution panel. It helps to regulate the mains power and mitigates the effects of any transients before they get into your system. Type 1 is often high-capacity and designed to withstand external factors like a partial lightning current.Type 2 is installed adjacent to your main units and helps reduce both internal and external power surges. They can handle both large and small surges and are good for protecting sensitive equipment.Type 3 is one of the most common types, but is designed for managing medium surges only. Protection for sensitive equipment is small-scale and local, so this type should only be used to supplement Type 2.<h2 dir="ltr">Choosing The Best Commercial Surge Protection</h2>You’ll find all shapes, sizes, types and costs of commercial surge protection, so you need to consider several factors when choosing the best for your requirements.<ul><li dir="ltr">Where is your equipment located?</li><li dir="ltr">How sensitive is it?</li><li dir="ltr">What level of exposure does your installation have?</li><li dir="ltr">Is your property exposed to lightning transients?</li></ul>You’ll also need to take into account the surge protector’s joule rating, clamping voltage, response time and whether it has indicator lights to show you that it’s working properly. It should have a UL rating of its safety and a transient voltage surge suppressor. As a general rule, anything electric and expensive needs a surge protector.&nbsp;

We rely so heavily on electricity these days that it’s critical to address potential problems in the supply chain. Domestically, commercially and in industry, this applies not only to power cuts, but also to equally disruptive spikes or surges.

Why Is Commercial Surge Protection Important?

A multi-institutional research team led by Georgia Tech’s <a href="https://www.mse.gatech.edu/people/hailong-chen" target="_blank">Hailong Chen</a> has developed a new, low-cost cathode that could radically improve lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) — potentially transforming the electric vehicle (EV) market and large-scale energy storage systems.&nbsp;“For a long time, people have been looking for a lower-cost, more sustainable alternative to existing cathode materials. I think we’ve got one,” said Chen, an associate professor with appointments in the George W. <a href="https://www.me.gatech.edu/" target="_blank">Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering</a> and the <a href="https://www.mse.gatech.edu/" target="_blank">School of Materials Science and Engineering</a>.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1728519667694-Zhantao+sly+smile+device.jpg" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Zhantao Liu with the new low-cost cathode that could revolutionize lithium-ion batteries and the EV industry. Photo by Jerry GrilloThe revolutionary material, iron chloride (FeCl3), costs a mere 1-2% of typical cathode materials and canstore the same amount of electricity. Cathode materials affect capacity,&nbsp;energy, and efficiency, playing a major role in a battery’s performance, lifespan, and affordability.“Our cathode can be a game-changer,” said Chen, whose team <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01431-6" target="_blank">describes its work in Nature Sustainability</a>. “It would greatly improve the EV market — and the whole lithium-ion battery market.”First commercialized by Sony in the early 1990s, LIBs sparked an explosion in personal electronics, like smartphones and tablets. The technology eventually advanced to fuel electric vehicles, providing a reliable, rechargeable, high-density energy source. But unlike personal electronics, large-scale energy users like EVs are especially sensitive to the cost of LIBs.&nbsp;Batteries are currently responsible for about 50% of an EV’s total cost, which makes these clean-energy cars more expensive than their internal combustion, greenhouse-gas-spewing cousins. The Chen team’s invention could change that.<h2>Building a Better Battery</h2>Compared to old-fashioned alkaline and lead-acid batteries, LIBs store more energy in a smaller package and power a device longer between charges. But LIBs contain expensive metals, including semiprecious elements like cobalt and nickel, and they have a high manufacturing cost.&nbsp;So far, only four types of cathodes have been successfully commercialized for LIBs. Chen’s would be the fifth, and it would represent a big step forward in battery technology: the development of an all-solid-state LIB.Conventional LIBs use liquid electrolytes to transport lithium ions for storing and releasing energy. They have hard limits on how much energy can be stored, and they can leak and catch fire. But all-solid-state LIBs use solid electrolytes, dramatically boosting a battery’s efficiency and reliability and making it safer and capable of holding more energy. These batteries, still in the development and testing phase, would be a considerable improvement.&nbsp;As researchers and manufacturers across the planet race to make all-solid-state technology practical, Chen and his collaborators have developed an affordable and sustainable solution. With the FeCl3 cathode, a solid electrolyte, and a lithium metal anode, the cost of their whole battery system is 30-40% of current LIBs.&nbsp;“This could not only make EVs much cheaper than internal combustion cars, but it provides a new and promising form of large-scale energy storage, enhancing the resilience of the electrical grid,” Chen said. “In addition, our cathode would greatly improve the sustainability and supply chain stability of the EV market.”<h2>Solid Start to New Discovery</h2>Chen’s interest in FeCl3 as a cathode material originated with his lab’s research into solid electrolyte materials. Starting in 2019, his lab tried to make solid-state batteries using chloride-based solid electrolyteswith traditional commercial oxide-based cathodes. It didn’t go well — the cathode and electrolyte materials didn’t get along.&nbsp;The researchers thought&nbsp;a chloride-based cathode could provide a better pairing with the chloride electrolyte to offer better battery performance.“We found a candidate&nbsp;(FeCl3)&nbsp;worth trying, as its crystal structure is potentially suitable for storing and transporting Li ions, and fortunately, it functioned as we expected,” said Chen.Currently, the most popularly used cathodes in EVs&nbsp;are oxides and&nbsp;require a gigantic amount of costly nickel and cobalt, heavy elements that can be toxic and pose an environmental challenge. In contrast, the Chen team’s cathode contains&nbsp;only&nbsp;iron (Fe) and chlorine (Cl)—abundant, affordable, widely used elements found in steel and table salt.In their initial tests, FeCl3 was found to perform as well as or better than the other, much more expensive cathodes. For example, it has a higher operational voltage than the popularly used cathode LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate, or LFP), which is the electrical force a battery provides when connected to a device, similar to water pressure from a garden hose.&nbsp;This technology may be less than five years from commercial viability in EVs. For now, the team will continue investigating FeCl3 and related materials, according to Chen. The work was led by Chen and postdoc Zhantao Liu (the lead author of the study). Collaborators included researchers from Georgia Tech’s Woodruff School (Ting Zhu) and the <a href="https://eas.gatech.edu/home" target="_blank">School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences</a> (Yuanzhi Tang), as well as the <a href="https://www.ornl.gov/" target="_blank">Oak Ridge National Laboratory</a> (Jue Liu) and the <a href="https://uh.edu/" target="_blank">University of Houston</a> (Shuo Chen).“We want to make the materials as perfect as possible in the lab and understand the underlying functioning mechanisms,” Chen said. “But we are open to opportunities to scale up the technology and push it toward commercial applications.”CITATION: Zhantao Liu, Jue Liu, Simin Zhao, Sangni Xun, Paul Byaruhanga, Shuo Chen, Yuanzhi Tang, Ting Zhu, Hailong Chen. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01431-6" target="_blank">“Low-cost iron trichloride cathode for all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries.” Nature Sustainability</a>.

Hailong Chen and Zhantao Liu present a new, low-cost cathode for all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries. Photo by Jerry Grillo

A research team led by Georgia Tech’s Hailong Chen has developed a low-cost iron chloride cathode for lithium-ion batteries, which could significantly reduce costs and improve performance for electric vehicles and large-scale energy storage systems.

New Battery Cathode Material Could Revolutionize EV Market and Energy Storage

Batteries have become so integral to everyday life – powering everything from mobile devices to electric vehicles and renewable energy storage systems – that people often don’t even think about them. But our increasing reliance on batteries has made considerations like their sustainability and ability to hold charge in a range of environments and the ability to reliably source materials needed to produce them urgent considerations.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1728432344954-ezgif-4-fd42337716.jpg" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Peng Bai’s research group combines stable sodium metal plated in liquid electrolyte (left) with precisely engineered particles of sodium vanadium phosphate (right) to create safe and efficient sodium batteries. (Image credit: Peng Bai, Rajeev Gopal and Ethan Boutelle / WashU)<a href="https://engineering.washu.edu/faculty/Peng-Bai.html" target="_blank">Peng Bai</a>, associate professor of energy, environmental &amp; chemical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, received a two-year, $550,000 Partnerships for Innovation – Technology Translation award from the National Science Foundation to support his work on sodium-based batteries. The award will allow Bai to expand his prior NSF-funded research to scale up and commercialize his sodium battery technology.&nbsp;Bai’s sodium-based batteries deliberately move away from lithium and other rare elements used in traditional batteries. Sodium, a more abundant and easier to process material, promises lower production costs and alleviated supply chain vulnerabilities, fostering a more sustainable and economically efficient energy landscape. Sodium-based batteries may also offer enhanced fast-charging capabilities and improved operation in cold environments, expanding their potential application in large-scale energy storage and portable electronics, including electric vehicles.The project, “<a href="https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2431923" target="_blank">Development of high-performance long-life electrodes for sustainable sodium-based batteries</a>,” has three main goals: ensuring consistency in larger production batches, developing greener manufacturing processes using water instead of toxic solvents, and optimizing production processes at a commercial scale. These advancements would pave the way for sodium-based batteries to make their way into everyday technologies within five years, Bai says.

Peng Bai will work toward sustainable and efficient energy storage technology

Beyond lithium: Sodium-based batteries may power the future

Manufacturing facilities are also at risk – especially if they’re producing the batteries themselves, like the&nbsp;<a title="South Korea" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/about-20-bodies-found-after-fire-south-korea-battery-plant-yonhap-reports-2024-06-24/" target="_blank">recent disaster in South Korea</a>. If you have any devices or vehicles with Li-ion batteries on your premises, thermal runaway protection is strongly advised.&nbsp;One of the biggest dangers is that very few people are yet aware of what thermal runaway actually means. In this article, we’ll address this topic and discuss the issues surrounding Li-ion battery fires. Armed with this information, you’ll be able to use your batteries in greater confidence that your manufacturing operations are powered responsibly and safely.<h2 dir="ltr">What Is Thermal Runaway?</h2>Fire usually depends on fuel to continue burning. If no fuel supply is available, it will eventually burn itself out. But in cases like forest fires and extreme chemical blazes, that doesn’t happen. With an inexhaustible supply of fuel, the fire keeps getting hotter and hotter, releasing radiant energy in the form of light and thermal energy in the form of heat.&nbsp;This thermal energy drives the temperature up higher, releasing yet more energy. This is thermal runaway: a self-perpetuating cycle of increased temperature releasing more energy, creating further temperature increases. This cycle will continue until the original fire develops into something incredibly hot and extremely dangerous.These aren’t just any ordinary kind of fires. They spread faster, burn hotter and are immensely difficult to extinguish. The temperatures involved in some cases are so high that <a title="Re-Ignite " href="https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Pages/HWY19SP002.aspx" target="_blank">a blaze may actually re-ignite</a>, even after having been put out. This is considered a direct result of thermal runaway and means fighting Li-ion battery fires by means of oxygen deprivation is less likely to be effective.&nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr">Causes Of Thermal Runaway</h2>Thermal runaway is trending in many branches of science, from electrical and chemical engineering to theories on global warming. Of most interest to manufacturers is its relevance to electric vehicles and Li-ion batteries, plus electrical overloads and situations where an exothermic chemical reaction may develop. This includes chemical plants, oil refineries and concrete-curing facilities.&nbsp;When we understand how thermal runaway happens, we can implement strategies for avoiding it. In this way, you’ll be helping to ensure the safety of your employees and your business operations. The most common reasons that thermal runaway occurs include:<ul><li dir="ltr">Rapid battery charging drawing down excessive current</li><li dir="ltr">Over-charging a battery past its safe voltage levels</li><li dir="ltr">Over-discharging a battery multiple times and then charging it</li><li dir="ltr">Physical battery damage such as puncturing or crushing</li><li dir="ltr">Manufacturing defects</li><li dir="ltr">Short circuits, whether internal or external&nbsp;</li><li dir="ltr">Excess moisture</li><li dir="ltr">Extreme temperature environments</li></ul>Thermal runaway is a highly dangerous phenomenon, occurring when a system or piece of equipment develops a self-sustaining temperature rise. The self-sustaining temperature increases may eventually cause batteries to release toxic flammable gases, which then catch fire or explode.&nbsp;As battery cells continue to decompose and vent flammable gases, the fire will spread – far more rapidly than any other kind of fire. Not only is this type of fire harder to extinguish, but larger batteries are capable of reignition hours or even days after the original event.&nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr">Thermal Runaway Temperatures In Lithium-ion Fires</h2>Li-ion batteries are judged to be fairly safe operating at temperatures up to 140° F (60° C). At temperatures higher than this, the battery is likely to become unstable, which will probably end in thermal runaway. In this event, Li-ion fires generally ignite at temperatures around 932° F (500° C) and are capable of reaching as high as 2000° F (around 1100° C). It’s the reignition factor, though, that causes the greatest concern. This happens because the battery’s lithium salts are self-oxidising, so you can't put them out like a traditional fire with oxygen starvation.&nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr">Why Is Thermal Runaway Becoming So Common?</h2>The main reason we’re seeing more Li-ion fires is the more widespread adoption of the technology itself. Li-ion batteries are becoming more prevalent in various industries, processes and circumstances, but the safety risks have not yet been adequately evaluated. Handheld devices, remote technology and electric vehicles are being integrated into many concerns, including such large-scale operations as the&nbsp;<a title="Battlefield" href="https://www.rowse.co.uk/blog/post/how-are-electric-vehicles-used-in-defence" target="_blank">defence sector’s ‘battlefield electrification’ project</a>, often with insufficient consideration of the potential safety risks.<h2 dir="ltr">How To Implement Thermal Runaway Protection In Manufacturing</h2>It’s still early days for this technology, so no official standards for the fire safety performance of Li-ion batteries have yet been formulated. General requirements and tests are included in IEC 62133, governing the performance and safety of Li-ion batteries sealed into portable electronic devices, but no guidance is available for larger units such as those used in vehicles and energy storage facilities.What you can do is protect your facilities as far as possible from thermal runaway by using a few sensible precautions:<ul><li dir="ltr">Use only high-quality Li-ion batteries that have safety features built in, such as protection against overcharge and over-discharge.</li><li dir="ltr">Handle Li-ion batteries with caution and store them properly to ensure safer and more efficient operations</li><li dir="ltr">Don’t expose batteries to extreme temperatures</li><li dir="ltr">Never leave charging batteries unattended, as they could overcharge or overheat</li></ul><h2 dir="ltr">Are Li-ion Batteries Safe For Industrial Use?</h2>If you do experience a thermal runaway fire, you’ll require specialist equipment to put it out and preferably professional assistance. Water and oxygen deprivation aren’t very effective against self-sustaining thermal runaways, but specialist battery storage solutions might come with dedicated suppression systems. Be very careful if you’re investing in this sort of technology.Li-ion batteries are usually considered safe in certain circumstances, but so far these have mainly been associated with portable devices. The recent publicity around Li-ion fires demonstrates that better education and training is required, especially in new environments like manufacturing. This can be included in general programmes of&nbsp;<a title="Machine Safety Training " href="https://www.rowse-automation.co.uk/blog/post/the-importance-of-training-in-machine-safety" target="_blank">machine safety training</a>, with special highlights on mitigating the risks of thermal runaway.

Why Is Thermal Runaway Protection Important In Manufacturing? Thermal runaway has been in the news lately – mainly due to the devastating consequences of lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery fires. 

Why Is Thermal Runaway Protection Important In Manufacturing?

For the past decade, disordered rock salt has been studied as a potential breakthrough cathode material for use in lithium-ion batteries and a key to creating low-cost, high-energy storage for everything from cell phones to electric vehicles to renewable energy storage.A new MIT study is making sure the material fulfills that promise.Led by Ju Li, the Tokyo Electric Power Company Professor in Nuclear Engineering and professor of materials science and engineering, a team of researchers describe a new class of partially disordered rock salt cathode, integrated with polyanions — dubbed disordered rock salt-polyanionic spinel, or DRXPS — that delivers high energy density at high voltages with significantly improved cycling stability.“There is typically a trade-off in cathode materials between energy density and cycling stability … and with this work we aim to push the envelope by designing new cathode chemistries,” says Yimeng Huang, a postdoc in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and first author of a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01615-6" target="_blank">paper describing the work published today in&nbsp;Nature Energy</a>. “(This) material family has high energy density and good cycling stability because it integrates two major types of cathode materials, rock salt and polyanionic olivine, so it has the benefits of both.”Importantly, Li adds, the new material family is primarily composed of manganese, an earth-abundant element that is significantly less expensive than elements like nickel and cobalt, which are typically used in cathodes today.“Manganese is at least five times less expensive than nickel, and about 30 times less expensive than cobalt,” Li says. “Manganese is also the one of the keys to achieving higher energy densities, so having that material be much more earth-abundant is a tremendous advantage.”<h2>A possible path to renewable energy infrastructure</h2>That advantage will be particularly critical, Li and his co-authors wrote, as the world looks to build the renewable energy infrastructure needed for a low- or no-carbon future.Batteries are a particularly important part of that picture, not only for their potential to decarbonize transportation with electric cars, buses, and trucks, but also because they will be essential to addressing the intermittency issues of wind and solar power by storing excess energy, then feeding it back into the grid at night or on calm days, when renewable generation drops.Given the high cost and relative rarity of materials like cobalt and nickel, they wrote, efforts to rapidly scale up electric storage capacity would likely lead to extreme cost spikes and potentially significant materials shortages.“If we want to have true electrification of energy generation, transportation, and more, we need earth-abundant batteries to store intermittent photovoltaic and wind power,” Li says. “I think this is one of the steps toward that dream.”That sentiment was shared by Gerbrand Ceder, the&nbsp;Samsung&nbsp;Distinguished&nbsp;Chair&nbsp;in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Research and a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.“Lithium-ion batteries are a critical part of the clean energy transition,” Ceder says. “Their continued growth and price decrease depends on the development of inexpensive, high-performance cathode materials made from earth-abundant materials, as presented in this work.”<h2>Overcoming obstacles in existing materials</h2>The new study addresses one of the major challenges facing disordered rock salt cathodes — oxygen mobility.While the materials have long been recognized for offering very high capacity — as much as 350 milliampere-hour per gram — as compared to traditional cathode materials, which typically have capacities of between 190 and 200 milliampere-hour per gram, it is not very stable.The high capacity is contributed partially by oxygen redox, which is activated when the cathode is charged to high voltages. But when that happens, oxygen becomes mobile, leading to reactions with the electrolyte and degradation of the material, eventually leaving it effectively useless after prolonged cycling.To overcome those challenges, Huang added another element — phosphorus — that essentially acts like a glue, holding the oxygen in place to mitigate degradation.“The main innovation here, and the theory behind the design, is that Yimeng added just the right amount of phosphorus, formed so-called polyanions with its neighboring oxygen atoms, into a cation-deficient rock salt structure that can pin them down,” Li explains. “That allows us to basically stop the percolating oxygen transport due to strong covalent bonding between phosphorus and oxygen … meaning we can both utilize the oxygen-contributed capacity, but also have good stability as well.”That ability to charge batteries to higher voltages, Li says, is crucial because it allows for simpler systems to manage the energy they store.“You can say the quality of the energy is higher,” he says. “The higher the voltage per cell, then the less you need to connect them in series in the battery pack, and the simpler the battery management system.”<h2>Pointing the way to future studies</h2>While the cathode material described in the study could have a transformative impact on lithium-ion battery technology, there are still several avenues for study going forward.Among the areas for future study, Huang says, are efforts to explore new ways to fabricate the material, particularly for morphology and scalability considerations.“Right now, we are using high-energy ball milling for mechanochemical synthesis, and … the resulting morphology is non-uniform and has small average particle size (about 150 nanometers). This method is also not quite scalable,” he says. “We are trying to achieve a more uniform morphology with larger particle sizes using some alternate synthesis methods, which would allow us to increase the volumetric energy density of the material and may allow us to explore some coating methods … which could further improve the battery performance. The future methods, of course, should be industrially scalable.”In addition, he says, the disordered rock salt material by itself is not a particularly good conductor, so significant amounts of carbon — as much as 20 weight percent of the cathode paste — were added to boost its conductivity. If the team can reduce the carbon content in the electrode without sacrificing performance, there will be higher active material content in a battery, leading to an increased practical energy density.“In this paper, we just used Super P, a typical conductive carbon consisting of nanospheres, but they’re not very efficient,” Huang says. “We are now exploring using carbon nanotubes, which could reduce the carbon content to just 1 or 2 weight percent, which could allow us to dramatically increase the amount of the active cathode material.”Aside from decreasing carbon content, making thick electrodes, he adds, is yet another way to increase the practical energy density of the battery. This is another area of research that the team is working on.“This is only the beginning of DRXPS research, since we only explored a few chemistries within its vast compositional space,” he continues. “We can play around with different ratios of lithium, manganese, phosphorus, and oxygen, and with various combinations of other polyanion-forming elements such as boron, silicon, and sulfur.”With optimized compositions, more scalable synthesis methods, better morphology that allows for uniform coatings, lower carbon content, and thicker electrodes, he says, the DRXPS cathode family is very promising in applications of electric vehicles and grid storage, and possibly even in consumer electronics, where the volumetric energy density is very important.<hr>This work was supported with funding from the Honda Research Institute USA Inc. and the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and used resources of the National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. The work was carried out, in part, using MIT.nano’s facilities.&nbsp;

An artistic illustration of the integration between two distinct battery cathode structures, rock salt (blue polyhedra) and polyanion olivine (red/yellow polyhedra). A novel hybrid structure is obtained by integrating polyanions (yellow polyhedra) into a rock salt (blue polyhedra) structure. Photo: Yimeng Huang/Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

A new family of integrated rock salt-polyanion cathodes opens door to low-cost, high-energy storage.

Study of disordered rock salts leads to battery breakthrough

Photovoltaics are set to meet over 40 percent of Switzerland’s electricity needs by 2050. But solar power isn’t always available when it’s needed: there’s too much of it in summer and too little in winter, when the sun shines less often and heat pumps are running at full tilt. According to the Swiss federal government’s Energy Strategy, Switzerland wants to close the winter electricity gap with a combination of imports, wind and hydropower as well as alpine solar plants and gas-fired power plants.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1725320869826-image.imageformat.carousel.940179852.jpg" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">ETH researchers Samuel Heiniger (left, with a jar of iron ore) and Professor Wendelin Stark in front of the three iron reactors on ETH Zurich’s Hönggerberg campus. (Image: ETH Zurich)One way to minimise the need for imports and gas-fired power plants in winter is to produce hydrogen from cheap solar power in summer, which could then be converted into electricity in winter. However, hydrogen is highly flammable, extremely volatile and makes many materials brittle. Storing the gas from summer until winter calls for special pressurised containers and cooling technology. These require a lot of energy, while the many safety precautions that must be followed make building such storage facilities very expensive. What’s more, hydrogen tanks are never completely leak-proof, which harms the environment and adds to the costs.Now researchers at ETH Zurich led by Wendelin Stark, Professor of Functional Materials at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, have developed a new technology for the seasonal storage of hydrogen that is much safer and cheaper than existing solutions. The researchers are using a well-known technology and the fourth most abundant element on Earth: iron.<h2>Chemical storage</h2>To store hydrogen better, Stark and his team are relying on the steam-iron process, which has been understood since the 19th century. If there is a surplus of solar power available in the summer months, it can be used to split water to produce hydrogen. This hydrogen is then fed into a stainless steel reactor filled with natural iron ore at 400 degrees Celsius. There, the hydrogen extracts the oxygen from the iron ore – which in chemical terms is simply iron oxide – resulting in elemental iron and water.“This chemical process is similar to charging a battery. &nbsp;It means that the energy in the hydrogen can be stored as iron and water for long periods with almost no losses,” Stark says. When the energy is needed again in winter, the researchers reverse the process: they feed hot steam into the reactor to turn the iron and water back into iron oxide and hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be converted into electricity or heat in a gas turbine or fuel cell. To keep the energy required for the discharging process to a minimum, the steam is generated using waste heat from the discharging reaction.<a target="_blank"></a><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1725320890968-image.imageformat.1286.408338324.png" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The charging and discharging process for the storage technology. (Visualisations: ETH Zurich)<h2 id="isPasted">Cheap iron ore meets expensive hydrogen</h2>“The big advantage of this technology is that the raw material, iron ore, is easy to procure in large quantities. Plus it doesn’t even need processing before we put it in the reactor,” Stark says. Moreover, the researchers assume that large iron ore storage facilities could be built worldwide without substantially influencing the global market price of iron.The reactor in which the reaction takes place doesn’t have to fulfil any special safety requirements either. It consists of stainless steel walls just 6 millimetres thick. The reaction takes place at normal pressure and the storage capacity increases with each cycle. Once filled with iron oxide, the reactor can be reused for any number of storage cycles without having to replace its contents. Another advantage of the technology is that the researchers can easily expand the storage capacity. It’s simply a case of building bigger reactors and filling them with more iron ore. All these advantages make this storage technology an estimated ten times cheaper than existing methods.However, there’s also a downside to using hydrogen: its production and conversion are inefficient compared to other sources of energy, as up to 60 percent of its energy is lost in the process. This means that as a storage medium, hydrogen is most attractive when sufficient wind or solar power is available and other options are off the table. That is especially the case with industrial processes that can’t be electrified.<h2>Pilot plant on the Hönggerberg campus</h2>The researchers have demonstrated the technical feasibility of their storage technology using a pilot plant on the Hönggerberg campus. This consists of three stainless steel reactors with a capacity of 1.4 cubic metres, each of which the researchers have filled with 2–3 tonnes of untreated iron ore available on the market.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1725320913294-image.imageformat.1286.858633795.jpg" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">This 1.4-cubic-metre stainless steel reactor at the Hönggerberg campus holds 2–3 tonnes of untreated iron ore. (Image: ETH Zurich)“The pilot plant can store around 10 megawatt hours of hydrogen over long periods. Depending on how you convert the hydrogen into electricity, that’ll give you somewhere between 4 and 6 megawatt hours of power,” explains Samuel Heiniger, a doctoral student in Stark’s research group. This corresponds to the electricity demand from three to five Swiss single-family homes in the winter months. At present, the system is still running on electricity from the grid and not on the solar power generated on the Hönggerberg campus.This is soon set to change: the researchers want to expand the system such that by 2026, the ETH Hönggerberg campus can meet one-fifth of its winter electricity requirements using its own solar power from the summer. This would require reactors with a volume of 2,000 cubic metres, which could store around 4 gigawatt hours (GWh) of green hydrogen. Once converted into electricity, the stored hydrogen would supply around 2 GWh of power. “This plant could replace a small reservoir in the Alps as a seasonal energy storage facility. To put that in perspective, it equates to around one-tenth of the capacity of the Nant de Drance pumped storage power plant,” Stark says. In addition, the discharging process would generate 2 GWh of heat, which the researchers want to integrate into the campus’s heating system.<h2 id="isPasted">Good scalability</h2>But could this technology be harnessed to provide seasonal energy storage for Switzerland as a whole? The researchers have made some initial calculations: providing Switzerland with around 10 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity from seasonal hydrogen storage systems every year in the future – which would admittedly be a lot – would require some 15–20 TWh of green hydrogen and roughly 10,000,000 cubic metres of iron ore. “That’s about 2 percent of what Australia, the largest producer of iron ore, mines every year,” Stark says. By way of comparison, in its <a target="_blank">Energy Perspectives 2050+</a>, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy anticipates total electricity consumption of around 84 TWh in 2050.If reactors were built that could store around 1 GWh of electricity each, they would have a volume of roughly 1,000 cubic metres. This calls for around 100 square metres of building land. Switzerland would have to build some 10,000 of these storage systems to obtain 10 TWh of electricity in winter, which corresponds to an area of around 1 square metre per inhabitant.<hr><h2 id="isPasted">Coalition for Green Energy and Storage (CGES)</h2>This project is part of the <a href="https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2023/06/eth-zurich-and-epfl-launch-a-green-energy-coalition.html" target="_blank">Coalition for Green Energy and Storage</a>, which ETH Zurich launched in 2023 together with EPFL, PSI and Empa and is driving forward together with industrial partners - including major Swiss energy suppliers and authorities. The coalition has set itself the goal of rapidly bringing innovative technologies for the production and storage of carbon-neutral gases and fuels and for CO2 capture to market maturity. As part of CGES, larger pilot plants (‘catapults’) are to be built to test these technologies and make important contributions to the climate-neutral transformation of the energy system and security of supply. The next step will be to establish an association that will network interested stakeholders, provide them with scientific support and guidance and facilitate the implementation of projects.<h2 id="isPasted">Reference</h2>Literature: Heiniger, SP; Fan Z; Lustenberger UB, Stark WJ: Safe seasonal energy and hydrogen storage in a 1 : 10 single-household-sized pilot reactor based on the steam-iron process. Sustainable Energy &amp; Fuels 2024, 8 (1), 125-132. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SE01228J" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SE01228J</a>

Researchers at ETH Zurich are using iron to store hydrogen safely and for long periods. In the future, this technology could be used for seasonal energy storage.

Iron as an inexpensive storage medium for hydrogen

The effective utilization of renewable energies such as solar and wind power is an essential element to achieve carbon neutrality. According to the <a href="https://kpmg.com/xx/en/home/insights/2023/06/statistical-review-of-world-energy-2023.html" target="_blank">Statistical Review of World Energy 2023</a> report published by the Energy Institute in the U.K., renewable energies including hydropower already account for approximately 30% of the world's power supplies. The total amount of that renewable energy is 8,539 TWh. This means it has grown more than four times the 2,058 TWh that it was in 1985.When it comes to ways to fully utilize renewable energy, many people may think of large-scale power generation in places brimming with natural energy. Examples of that include solar power generation in vast places like deserts or grasslands and wind power generation on the sea. However, there are forms of renewable energy even in the middle of any big city. In fact, efforts are being proactively promoted to introduce power generation with renewable energy in urban areas. In Japan, for instance, solar panels are being installed on the rooftops of buildings and the roofs of houses. The amount of power these solar panels generate is small. This means they are being positioned as auxiliary power supplies. Nevertheless, they are being effectively utilized. Moreover, new efforts are underway to also develop and introduce solar power generation technologies on the walls and in the windows of buildings and technologies that generate power using the vibrations that come from people walking.Looking at the situation from a global perspective, many small and medium-sized cities are striving to achieve local production for local consumption in which the power consumed locally is supplied by utilizing wind power, solar power, hydropower, and other forms of renewable energy in that locality. Furthermore, an increasing number of companies are also participating in RE100. RE100 is an international initiative the aim of which is for companies to supply the power they use in their businesses with 100% renewable energy. These companies are proactively introducing power generation equipment into their factories and other facilities to generate as much power as possible on their own (Fig. 1).<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1725259865043-microgrid-img0001.jpg" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Fig. 1: An increasing number of companies are participating in RE100 and promoting power generation on their own with renewable energy (Left: Kanazu Murata Manufacturing Clean Energy Park / Right: Carport solar panels capable of dealing with fallen snow)<h2 id="isPasted">Microgrids: Supporting the Local Production for Local Consumption of Renewable Energy</h2>We can call efforts to achieve local production for local consumption by converting renewable energy into power an extremely effective means of utilizing energy. This is because it is possible to minimize the power loss that always occurs in power systems during the transmission and distribution of that power.Large-scale power plants are located far from cities where a large amount of power is consumed in current power systems. The power generated in those power plants is transmitted and distributed to the areas where it is consumed to be utilized in daily life and socio-economic activities. However, approximately 30% of the power generated in the power plants is wastefully lost in the process up to its use via the power transmission and distribution network (also known as the grid). This is because a large amount of power is dissipated as heat or electromagnetic waves due to power lines and power converter loads. The shorter the distance of power transmission and distribution, the fewer times the power is converted, making it possible to reduce power loss. Therefore, we can minimize the occurrence of power loss by achieving local production for local consumption using the natural energy all around us as a distributed power supply.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1725259887421-microgrid-img0002_en.jpg" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Fig. 2: Microgrid configuration and method of usage during normal times and emergenciesSource: <a href="https://www.meti.go.jp/shingikai/energy_environment/energy_resource/pdf/015_s01_00.pdf" target="_blank" data-lf-fd-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true">Materials from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's (a Japanese administrative agency) 4th Information Liaison Committee on the Introduction of Sustainable Renewable Energy in Local Communities</a>*This linked page is in Japanese.A small-scale power network aiming to achieve local production for local consumption of power is called a microgrid (Fig. 2). In addition to effectively utilizing renewable energy, microgrids have other benefits, as they are distributed power systems. For example, microgrids are capable of stably supplying power to communities even in the event of a large-scale power outage during an emergency such as a disaster. This allows us to maintain our daily life and business activities.<h2>Major Prerequisite of Operating Power Systems: Balancing Principle</h2>The concept of microgrids is simple. However, realizing microgrids is not that easy. This is because there is a major principle to the building and operating of power systems called the "balancing principle."The balancing principle is the rule that the amount of power supplied from a power plant must always match the amount of demand for power no matter what the power system. If we operate a power system in violation of this principle, the voltage of the power will become unstable and the equipment may fail, leading to a large-scale power outage.However, power derived from renewable energy like solar power is produced from unstable natural phenomena. Accordingly, we cannot conveniently adjust the amount of power generated. Therefore, it is difficult to supply the power we use and to fully use it with only power generated in the community. This means it is necessary to employ a mechanism that accommodates for surpluses and deficiencies with advanced operation and management like the fine adjustment of the balance in supply and demand in the community or the utilization of a large energy storage system (ESS).<h2>Smart Grids: Major Prerequisite for the Realization of Microgrids</h2>The means to solving this issue is a very similar concept to the microgrid called a "smart grid." A smart grid is a mechanism that automatically controls the necessary power so it can be supplied without surpluses or deficiencies by utilizing smart meters and other telecommunications devices to visualize in real time power demand in each individual household, business establishment, or other facility.Microgrids and smart grids are different concepts. Nevertheless, it is difficult to realize a microgrid that achieves local production for local consumption of power efficiently and effectively without introducing a smart grid mechanism. Smart grids grasp in real time and in detail the amount of power generated in distributed renewable energy power generation facilities and the amount of power consumed in daily life and business to achieve a balance between both while managing the charging and discharging of multiple distributed ESSs. If there is a deficiency in the power generated with just the charging and discharging permissible values of the installed ESSs, smart grids procure and release power from the wider grid to preserve the balance.The technology that uses IoT technology to control the amount of power supplied as if the multiple pieces of power generation equipment and ESSs in a microgrid were one power plant is called a "virtual power plant (VPP)." Meanwhile, smart meters are used to grasp in real time the power consumption situation in households and business establishments. Looking at the situation globally, smart meters are rapidly spreading. Smart meters began to be installed in households in 2014 in the greater Tokyo Metropolitan area in Japan. Installation was completed in almost all households and business establishments by the end of FY2020. The installation of smart meters across Japan is scheduled to be completed by the end of FY2024. In other words, we can say that the groundwork to promote the building of microgrids is steadily being laid.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1725259914808-microgrid-img0003.jpg" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Fig. 3: The spread of smart meters is a major prerequisite to smart grids and microgrids<h2 id="isPasted">DC Power Transmission and Distribution Systems Aiming for Further Improvements in Efficiency</h2>Attempts are also being advanced to further raise the energy utilization rate with microgrids. Currently, technological development is underway to introduce a new power transmission and distribution network called a "DC microgrid." This DC microgrid will transmit and distribute DC power instead of the AC power used for commercial power supplies.DC power supplies such as solar batteries and storage batteries are often used on the power supply side of microgrids. On the other hand, looking at the power consumption side, telecommunications devices made using semiconductors and electronic components and energy-saving electronic goods made using inverters operate on DC power. This means both sides handle DC power.Currently, however, AC power is being transmitted and distributed, so it is necessary to convert the power both when it is transmitted and when it is used. Power loss occurs at that time. DC microgrids are a technology aiming to minimize this waste. It is envisioned that DC buses of about 400 V will be laid in place of conventional AC 200 V / 100 V power lines and that high-voltage commercial grids will operate by being connected via a bidirectional AC/DC converter. In addition to microgrids, DC power transmission systems are being used to transmit power over long distances. There are already examples of this technology being put to practical use in Europe and America.The building and operation of microgrids will no doubt progress at the same time as there is an expansion in the usage settings of renewable energy. It is expected that demand will further increase for even more highly efficient and flexible microgrids that can handle various usage settings and the electronic components that support the building of those microgrids.<hr><h2 id="isPasted">Other Links</h2><ul><li><a href="https://corporate.murata.com/en-eu/csr/environment_murata/climate_change?intcid1=mar_art_xxx_tao_xxx_tao-link" target="_blank">Reinforcement of climate change countermeasures</a></li><li><a href="https://www.murata.com/en-eu/apps/industry/smartgrid/smartmeter?intcid1=mar_art_xxx_tao_xxx_tao-link" target="_blank">"Smart meter" application guide</a></li></ul>

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A tiny battery designed by MIT engineers could enable the deployment of cell-sized, autonomous robots for drug delivery within in the human body, as well as other applications such as locating leaks in gas pipelines.The new battery, which is 0.1 millimeters long and 0.002 millimeters&nbsp;thick — roughly the thickness of a human hair — can capture oxygen from air and use it to oxidize zinc, creating a current of up to 1 volt. That is enough to power a small circuit, sensor, or actuator, the researchers showed.“We think this is going to be very enabling for robotics,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study. “We’re building robotic functions onto the battery and starting to put these components together into devices.”Ge Zhang PhD ’22 and Sungyun Yang, an MIT graduate student,&nbsp;are the lead author of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.ade4642" target="_blank">paper</a>, which appears in&nbsp;Science Robotics.<h2>Powered by batteries</h2>For several years, Strano’s lab has been working on&nbsp;<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2018/cell-sized-robots-sense-their-environment-0723" target="_blank">tiny robots</a> that can sense and respond to stimuli in their environment. One of the major challenges in developing such tiny robots is making sure that they have enough power.Other researchers have shown that they can power microscale devices using solar power, but the limitation to that approach is that the robots must have a laser or another light source pointed at them at all times. Such devices are known as “marionettes” because they are controlled by an external power source. Putting a power source such as a battery inside these tiny devices could free them to roam much farther.“The marionette systems don’t really need a battery because they’re getting all the energy they need from outside,” Strano says. “But if you want a small robot to be able to get into spaces that you couldn’t access otherwise, it needs to have a greater level of autonomy. A battery is essential for something that’s not going to be tethered to the outside world.”To create robots that could become more autonomous, Strano’s lab decided to use a type of battery known as a zinc-air battery. These batteries, which have a longer lifespan than many other types of batteries due to their high energy density, are often used in hearing aids.The battery that they designed consists of a zinc electrode connected to a platinum electrode, embedded into a strip of a polymer called SU-8, which is commonly used for microelectronics. When these electrodes interact with oxygen molecules from the air, the zinc becomes oxidized and releases electrons that flow to the platinum electrode, creating a current.In this study, the researchers showed that this battery could provide enough energy to power an actuator — in this case, a robotic arm that can be raised and lowered. The battery could also power a memristor, an electrical component that can store memories of events by changing its electrical resistance, and a clock circuit, which allows robotic devices to keep track of time.The battery also provides enough power to run two different types of sensors that change their electrical resistance when they encounter chemicals in the environment. One of the sensors is made from atomically thin molybdenum disulfide and the other from carbon nanotubes.“We’re making the basic building blocks in order to build up functions at the cellular level,” Strano says.<h2>Robotic swarms</h2>In this study, the researchers used a wire to connect their battery to an external device, but in future work they plan to build robots in which the battery is incorporated into a device.“This is going to form the core of a lot of our robotic efforts,” Strano says. “You can build a robot around an energy source, sort of like you can build an electric car around the battery.”One of those efforts revolves around designing tiny robots that could be injected into the human body, where they could seek out a target site and then release a drug such as insulin. For use in the human body, the researchers envision that the devices would be made of biocompatible materials that would break apart once they were no longer needed.The researchers are also working on increasing the voltage of the battery, which may enable additional applications.

The zinc-air battery is 0.1 millimeters long and 0.02 millimeters thick. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

These zinc-air batteries, smaller than a grain of sand, could help miniscule robots sense and respond to their environment.

Engineers design tiny batteries for powering cell-sized robots

Magnetic cores are essential in modern electronics, influencing the functionality and efficiency of devices, from power supplies to renewable energy systems. Traditional designs, especially those with a single large air gap, struggle to meet the high-frequency and efficiency demands of present-day applications.&nbsp;This challenge has catalyzed the development of distributed air gap cores, which are primarily used to increase power handling capabilities, enable higher currents, and enhance the efficiency and thermal performance of magnetics. Historically, the technology behind distributed air gap cores has been around for nearly 30 years but has always been an expensive, highly customized solution –that is, until now.&nbsp;Today, <a href="https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/en/2796388/products/product-catalog/ferrites-and-accessories/cores-with-distributed-air-gaps" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TDK Corporation</a>, a global leader in electronic components, is innovating the standardization of Distributed air gap cores in a way that is revolutionizing how the market will specify, purchase, and adopt these crucial components. This article explores how distributed air gap cores are revolutionizing magnetic core design, offering a glimpse into their principles, advantages, and standardization efforts led by TDK.<h2 dir="ltr" id="isPasted">Challenges of Traditional Single Large Air Gap Cores</h2>Traditional magnetic cores with single large air gaps exhibit a number of drawbacks due to their high magnetic reluctance. This reluctance acts as resistance to magnetization, leading to considerable energy losses as magnetic fields stray from their intended paths. The large fringing flux emitted from these air gaps spreads into the winding area, causing copper losses that further lead to a rise in temperature and proximity losses in high-frequency magnetics.These compounded inefficiencies escalate into several challenges, notably excessive heat that degrades component performance and shortens device lifespan—critical issues in high-power and high-frequency applications. Additionally, the need to mitigate these effects results in larger, heavier cores, posing significant limitations in applications requiring compactness and device miniaturization.<h2 dir="ltr">Development of Distributed Air Gap Cores</h2>Distributed air gap cores are a type of magnetic core, which feature a magnetic material interspersed with non-magnetic gaps. These gaps are distributed uniformly throughout the material, rather than being concentrated in one area. By integrating multiple smaller air gaps throughout the core, distributed air gap technology optimizes the magnetic flux path, significantly reducing areas prone to flux leakage and fringing effects. This strategic distribution of air gaps minimizes non-functional magnetic fields and enhances the core's overall efficiency and performance.Additionally, this configuration allows for a more compact core design without sacrificing power handling capabilities, thus supporting the trend towards miniaturization in technology. The benefit extends to improved thermal management, as the reduced energy losses lead to less heat generation, allowing devices to operate at higher frequencies without compromising their longevity or performance.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzIzNTQ4MzA2NDk5LWltYWdlMy5wbmciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="thermal-image-temperature-comparision-single-air-ga-core-vs-distributed-air-gap-core">&nbsp;A thermal image comparison shows that after 60 minutes of operation at 3.4 A and 50 kHz, the temperature increase in a single large air gap core (left) is significantly higher than in a distributed air gap core (right).Here is a summary of the key benefits of using distributed air gap cores to address issues posed by their traditional counterparts:<ul><li dir="ltr">Improved Fringing Flux: Anywhere a gap is present, fringing flux is emitted. When there is a larger gap, there is also a larger fringing flux path. By incorporating a distributed air gap, the fringing flux losses decrease as the number of smaller air gaps increases. This can reduce the fringing flux losses by up to 70%.&nbsp;</li><li dir="ltr">Increased Power Density and Optimized Efficiency: Distributed air gaps increase the power handling capability of the design. In many cases the winding area is reduced to avoid fringing flux losses. By using distributed gapped cores to minimize the fringing flux, the full winding area can be used. This can allow for either a smaller component or higher power through the originally selected component.</li><li dir="ltr">Enhanced Performance: In high-frequency applications, the skin effect and proximity effect can lead to significant losses in electrical conductors. The skin effect refers to the tendency of alternating current (AC) to distribute itself within a conductor such that the current density is highest near the surface, effectively reducing the cross-sectional area available for current flow. The proximity effect, on the other hand, occurs when alternating magnetic fields from neighboring conductors cause the current to concentrate in certain regions of a conductor, increasing resistance and associated losses.&nbsp; Litz wire is a specialized type of wire designed to mitigate these effects. It consists of multiple thin, insulated strands woven together in a specific pattern, which helps reduce the losses caused by the skin and proximity effects. However, when using distributed air gap cores, which reduce the effects of fringing flux, it is possible to use solid wire instead of Litz wire. This substitution could lead to higher copper utilization within the winding area, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing costs.</li><li dir="ltr">Utilization of New Semiconductor Material: Distributed air gap cores are well-suited for applications using higher frequency switching technologies like Silicon Carbide and Gallium Nitrides. Their design reduces energy losses and enhances thermal management, making them ideal for handling the increased power densities and rapid switching speeds these technologies require.</li></ul><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1723548324218-image2.gif" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="hot-spot-comparision-single-gap-vs-distributed-gap-core">Hot spot comparison for single large air gap vs. distributed air gap cores: distributed air gaps reduce fringing flux and hotspots, improving thermal performance and efficiencyDistributed air gap cores have seen significant innovation in recent years. However, these solutions have been tailored and delivered specifically for the design of each end application.&nbsp;An unfortunate side effect of this is that each time a core is created for a custom application, it likely will not be used again for another design, increasing the overall cost of the technology and preventing new innovations from being passed on to others.<h2 dir="ltr">Introducing TDK’s Standardized Solutions</h2>TDK has responded to the need for taking a highly customized technology like the distributed air gap core and <a href="https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/en/2796388/products/product-catalog/ferrites-and-accessories/cores-with-distributed-air-gaps" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">providing a more standardized solution for it</a>. A standardized distributed air gap core portfolio offer reduces the dependence on custom-built offerings and will revolutionize the Distributed air gap core industry. Such standardized solutions will speed up time to market, improve the return on investment, and stimulate innovation while still allowing for application-specific customization.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5KzHH0Mh3bY?&amp;ab_channel=TDK&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true">&nbsp;</iframe>TDK solutions also offer one of the best total costs of ownership and cost/performance ratios due to reliability and reduced proximity losses. This becomes apparent when a single large air gap core is compared to various configurations of distributed air gaps.&nbsp;In fact, the best cost/performance ratio is achieved with three identical air gaps. Thermal image test comparisons between a single large air gap, when contrasted against three identical distributed air gap core sets, clearly show significantly lower outputs at varied frequencies.&nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr">The TDK Standardization Revolution</h2>As a pioneer in magnetics, TDK is the first to offer standard distributed air gap core solutions. TDK continues to invest in the future of magnetics and to support this introduction. The company has invested heavily in new automated manufacturing processes and equipment that improve the quality of air-gapped core products.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzIzNTQ4MzQwMzcwLWltYWdlNC5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 100%px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="distribute-air-gap-ferrite-core-by-TDK-corporation">A standard ferrite core with distributed air gaps by TDK. Image Source: TDK Corporation[1]TDK is revolutionizing how the market will specify, purchase, and adopt distributed air gapped cores with new standardized products. TDK offers the market easy access to a once highly customized solution. Manufacturing innovation is allowing the industry to take advantage of the technology in new ways. Additional innovation will follow, just as it does whenever a custom solution is standardized.Visit the <a href="https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/en/2796388/products/product-catalog/ferrites-and-accessories/cores-with-distributed-air-gaps" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TDK Corporation’s official website</a> to learn more about their innovative distributed air gap cores and how they can enhance the efficiency and performance of your high-power high-frequency applications.<h2 dir="ltr">Conclusion</h2>The development and standardization of distributed air gap cores mark a major advancement in magnetic materials used in electrical/electronics applications. By addressing the challenges with traditional designs, distributed air gap cores enhance efficiency, thermal management, and power handling.&nbsp;TDK’s leadership in standardizing these cores has reduced costs and accelerated innovation across various industries. As applications in industries, renewable energy, automotive, and high-frequency electronics grow, the importance of distributed air gap cores will continue to rise.<h2 dir="ltr">References</h2>[1] TDK Electronics. Distributed air gaps in ferrite cores. Available from: <a href="https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/en/180386/tech-library/publications/ferrites/ferrites-air-gaps-standard/2905788" target="_blank">https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/en/180386/tech-library/publications/ferrites/ferrites-air-gaps-standard/2905788</a>

Distributed air gap cores, traditionally expensive, enhance efficiency and thermal management in high-power, high-frequency applications by reducing reluctance and fringing flux. Standardization efforts by brands like TDK are making these advanced solutions more accessible and cost-effective.

Distributed Air Gap Cores: Standardizing High-Performance Magnetic Solutions

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