Background: The market for point of care test strips demands high quality tests and low production costs without sacrificing sensitivity and specificity. Highly-ordered nanomaterials are being investigated as a viable approach for meeting these demands. Highly-ordered nanomaterials are ideal as they are inexpensive to manufacture and have been shown to produce a remarkable increase in the sensitivity and specificity of electrochemical testing. Unfortunately current fabrication techniques make it difficult to produce uniform or easily controlled nanostructures.

Advances in the development of renewable energy sources and their storage have propelled efforts to design and fabricate ever higher charge density nanostructures (HDNs) that are cost-effective and safe. An optimal HDN would have a high surface area many sub-nanochannels through which charged species could access the internal surfaces and favorable surface reactivity. Northwestern University researchers rose to this challenge by designing and generating spherical carbon-based HDNs.

Background: Renewable resources have become increasingly obtainable and affordable thanks to the development of technology and the enactment of government policies. One of such renewables is photovoltaic (PV) power. Battery energy storage systems play a vital role in assisting high penetration PV connections to the power grid. When renewable energy sources including PV power are connected to a power grid problems such as intermittency related to cloud cover and mismatch in time between load demand and power generation can arise.

Problem: Large-scale adoption of solar thermal fuels requires enhanced energy storage capacity and thermal stability. Previous solar thermal fuels degraded after only a few cycles of energy conversion and release and/or were composed of expensive non-abundant elements. Technology: The invention suggests a new approach to the design of high-energy density solar thermal fuels based on combining well-studied photoswitch molecules with carbon nanotubes to increase energy storage capacity and thermal stability of the photoswitch molecules.

Project ID: ENG0098A Invention Description and Novelty: A common requirement for large stacks of electrochemical cells used in electric and hybrid vehicles is the need to measure individual or groups of cell voltages almost simultaneously. The principal problem with current techniques of voltage measurement is that a small error in measuring the nodal voltages translates into a large relative error in the measurement of segment voltages. This technology provides an electronic circuit for measuring voltage signals in an energy storage device.

Background: A revolutionary cable developed by UCF researchers can transmit and store electricity at the same time. The cable combines the energy transmission capability of a copper wire its core with energy storage made possible by a hybrid battery-supercapacitor the cable’s outer layer. Cables and batteries constitute the foundation of many electrical systems and the combination of electrical conduction and energy storage in a single cable has been non-existent until now.

Problem: Li-ion batteries have low gravimetric capacities (typically 1000-4000 mAh/gcarbon)-Tortuous pore structure limit the accessibility of electrolyte to available carbon surface area and can choke off electrolyte transport pathways during discharge-Require the addition of polymeric insulating binder material to improve mechanical integrity of electrodes and ensure good electrical connection between particles. Technology: This invention proposes the synthesis of MWCNT electrodes for Lithium-Air batteries.

Background: The lithium battery industry is undergoing rapid expansion now representing the largest segment of the portable battery industry and dominating the computer cell phone and camera power source industry. High capacity and high rate lithium-ion batteries (LIB) with low cost and improved safety characteristics constitute a major requirement for electric vehicles portable electronics and other energy storage applications.

Background: Testing and characterization of electrochemical energy cells such as microbatteries is critical in the development of battery-powered microelectronics. Discharge and cycle testing of microbatteries may require days or weeks of continuous monitoring and often must be conducted in a closed environment such as a glovebox. Galvanostatic studies are at present the preferred method for characterizing the performance of energy cells but characterization of microbattery performance requires galvanostats with microamp or better resolution.

Large scale utility energy storage is a growing market. Cost effective energy storage will increase the robustness and efficiency of the energy transmission grid will enable the development of a \"smart grid\"" and will facilitate the introduction of intermittent renewable energy conversion systems such as wind and solar. A recent report by Sandia National Laboratory identifies 17 major grid applications that could benefit from energy storage. The market for energy storage is estimated by this report to exceed $228 billion over the next 10 years.