Technology Trending: solar EV charger, liquid windows, next-gen Li-ion batteries

A solar DC-to-DC EV charger, squid skin-inspired ‘liquid windows’ and next-gen high performance Li-ion batteries for e-aviation are on this week’s technology radar.

Smart solar EV charger

Electric vehicle (EV) charging technology provider Enteligent has reported unveiling what it calls “the world’s first DC-to-DC solar hybrid bi-directional EV charger”.

Powered directly from the sun, the solar EV charger can supply 25kW of fast DC charging, while also supporting vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) options with their potential to provide significant energy savings.

Currently, EV owners plug their cars into home chargers which are powered by an AC flow of energy. But EV batteries operate on DC requiring the power to be converted – a process that can be inefficient and result in significant energy loss and a longer charging time.

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By eliminating the conversion, Enteligent claims its chargers can result in up to 25% energy savings as well as a dramatically shortened time to charge. Its solar power also makes it convenient and affordable to charge during the day.

“This technology will benefit consumers by enabling them to shift from night-time charging, which is dependent on the fossil fuel powered grid, to clean, solar-based, daytime charging,” promises Sean Burke, founder, and CEO of Enteligent.

Squid skin inspires ‘liquid windows’

Declared to be inspired by the dynamic colour-changing skin of organisms such as squid, researchers of the University of Toronto have developed a multilayered fluidic system which can modify the wavelength, intensity and dispersion of light transmitted through windows and thereby optimise the heating, cooling or lighting requirements within.

Whereas current smart building technologies are primarily focused on controlling the amount of sunlight that enters, the new system also controls other wavelengths of light such as infra-red, which provides heat, which one might want to include in the winter but exclude in the summer.

The system in prototype form consists of flat sheets of plastic that are permeated with an array of millimetre-thick channels through which fluids can be pumped. Customised pigments, particles or other molecules can be mixed into the fluids to control what kind of light gets through – such as visible versus near-infrared wavelengths – and in which direction this light is then distributed.

“It’s simple and low cost, but it also enables incredible combinatorial control. We can design liquid state dynamic building facades that do basically anything you’d like to do in terms of their optical properties,” says Raphael Kay, a recent master’s graduate and lead author of the work.

Computer modelling of a hypothetical building covered in this type of dynamic façade revealed that with just one layer focused on modulating the transmission of near-infrared light about 25% could be saved annually on heating, cooling and lighting energy. With two layers, with the addition of visible, the saving doubles to about 50%.

The researchers believe that with the addition of AI, buildings could be able to adjust the array on a dynamic basis to optimise for daily and seasonal variations.

Next-gen lithium-ion batteries

California-based Ionblox (formerly Zenlabs) has just received a $32 million Series B funding boost to scale its silicon anode-based lithium-ion cells for electric aviation and fast charging for electric road vehicles.

Ionblox’s technology uses a pre-lithiated silicon anode, which, in comparison with traditional lithium-ion cells, is asserted to achieve up to 50% higher energy density, 5x more power and an extreme fast charge time of 10 minutes.

Ionblox is currently producing its large format pouch cells of up to 50Ah on its pilot production lines.

“The Ionblox technology enables one of the highest performance cells for eVTOL aircraft existing today. Test results to date are showing the technology will deliver not only superior energy and power density for the Lilium Jet at launch but also very good aging performance,” says Yves Yemsi, chief operating officer of German air mobility company Lilium, which has been an ongoing investor in Ionblox.

Lilium’s Jet is set to be the first electric vertical take-off and landing craft, of which final assembly is due to start during 2023.