Nanotecture templating process offers route to better batteries

The development of high-performance batteries and supercapacitors is being driven by the creation of electrode materials with high surface areas. These can increase the power density of such storage devices by enhancing their electrochemical reaction rate while reducing their weight and size.

To that end, many companies are now developing nanoparticle-based materials for such applications. However, while these materials do have a high surface area, the processes involved in manufacturing them can be expensive and the nanomaterials can be problematic to manage in a manufacturing environment.

Taking an alternative approach, Southampton-based Nanotecture has developed a unique liquid-crystal templating process that can be used to make nanoporous materials with high surface areas. While the company believes that such porous material produced by its low-cost process will be very effective at increasing the power density of the electrodes of storage devices, the micron-sized particles created will be easier to handle than nanoparticles.

The liquid-crystal templating process was originally created as the result of work performed at Southampton University by Prof Phil Bartlett in 2003. Having licensed the original intellectual property from the university, Nanotecture has refined the process over the past seven years and is now ready to realise its commercial potential.