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Ammonia heralds smell of success

Amogy in the US has demonstrated its ammonia-powered technology in a heavy-duty electric vehicle for the first time (writes Nick Flaherty). The 100 kW tractor marks a 20-fold increase in the performance of the technology over the past year. It uses ammonia (NH3) with a fuel cell rather than hydrogen to provide access to a […]

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48 V bidirectional charger for hybrids

EPC has developed a reference design called the EPC9165 for a 2 kW bidirectional charger in 48 V hybrid vehicles using GaN transistors (writes Nick Flaherty). Mild hybrids running on 48 V require a 48 to 12 V bidirectional converter, with power ranging from 1.5 to 6 kW. The EPC9165’s design uses a synchronous buck/boost […]

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Cool approach to efficient air liners

GKN Aerospace has been working on cryogenic technology to boost the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells and electric motors for aircraft (writes Nick Flaherty). The ‘hyperconducting’ systems proposed by the company use the liquid hydrogen stored in the aircraft as fuel as a heat sink, cooling the electrical conductors to temperatures below -200 ºC to […]

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From black mass to high-purity cobalt

Aqua Metals has demonstrated a key step in using recycled elements in the production of lithium-ion cells for EVs (writes Nick Flaherty). The company, based in Nevada, has successfully plated high-purity cobalt and produced manganese dioxide from lithium-ion battery black mass. Black mass is the result of the recycling process of lithium ion battery cells […]

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BMW opts into series hydrogen

BMW has started series production of electric powertrains based on hydrogen fuel cells, in a major step forward for the technology (writes Nick Flaherty). Previous production has been for prototype and test vehicles, using fuel cell technology developed in-house. BMW’s hydrogen powertrain will now be used in the company’s iX5 Hydrogen, which will be built […]

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Less neodymium, more cerium

Engineers at the Korea Institute of Materials Science have developed a process for producing high-performance and cost-effective magnets for high-speed electric motors using cerium to reduce the amount of neodymium (writes Nick Flaherty). Cerium is an abundant rare earth element, while neodymium is in increasingly short supply, driving up prices. The process can reduce the […]

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Tunnel devices come into the light

Murata has launched its first series of high-performance coreless current sensors using tunnel magneto-resistive (TMR) elements (writes Nick Flaherty). The MRD series of open-loop current sensors integrates high-performance TMR elements. These use a magneto-resistive effect that occurs in a magnetic tunnel junction composed of two ferromagnets separated by a thin insulator. The insulator, typically a […]

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Reference design aimed at e-bikes

Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) has developed an inverter reference design based around an integrated gallium nitride (GaN) chip that reduces the size of powertrains in electric bikes (writes Nick Flaherty). The design, for a 1.5 kW three phase brushless DC motor drive inverter, uses the EPC23101 eGaN chip. This has an embedded gate driver function […]

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Gate driver designs for heavy EVs

Power Integrations (PI) has developed two versions of its gate driver board that is suitable for powertrain designs in heavy equipment such as trucks, buses, and agricultural and construction equipment (writes Nick Flaherty). The Scale EV gate driver boards are designed to fit on top of Infineon’s EconoDual half-bridge modules in the same footprint. The […]

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Going large offers longer range

Advanced Cell Engineering (ACE) has filed a patent application for a very large format (VLF) battery cell (writes Nick Flaherty). The filing, in the U,S is part of its Project Magnus to develop a highly efficient, 1 m cell-to-pack prismatic cell. It is ACE’s fourth patent application in the past 6 months. Rather than using thousands […]