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Siemens Meet at the Machine: Be productive from day one of new CNC machine delivery

Traditionally, many programming, validation, and training activities begin only after a machine is installed. Not anymore. Meet at the Machine is Siemens' new initiative uniting machine builders, software, and automation for next-level CNC through a continuous digital thread across engineering, programming, virtual validation, and execution. By pairing a Digital Twin with Digital CNC powered by SINUMERIK, manufacturers can prepare, validate, train, and optimize workflows before your specialized machine's physical delivery! TRAK Machine Tools is the launch partner -- see what they are doing.
Learn more.

How to master metal powder management in 3D printing

What's the real cost of "good enough" powder tracking for powder-bed fusion 3D-printing machines? According to Tim Wischeropp, CEO and Co-Founder of amsight, the technology is rife with hidden costs. Every cycle, every handling step, every exposure, and every mixing decision plays a part. Surprisingly, though, with the right strategy, users can turn their losses into a competitive edge. Learn how.
Read the full article.

Aluminum oxide filament for FDM printers

Virtual Foundry, the company that brought us 3D-printable lunar regolith simulant, has a new product called Aluminum Oxide Filamet™, giving users the power to print alumina parts using the FDM printers they already own. This composite 3D-printing material allows researchers, engineers, and makers to bypass expensive ceramic tooling and produce pure ceramic components in-house. Print using a 0.6-mm hardened-steel, standard-flow nozzle on virtually any open-architecture printer.
Get all the material specs.

New metal extrusion retrofit system helps manufacturers get into ShAPE

A new invention from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory could soon help manufacturers more easily adopt the lab's patented Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (ShAPE™) technology, enabling faster manufacturing of superior extrusion products while reducing costs and energy use.
Read the full article.

Pneumatics: Dual guide rod cylinders and exhaust silencers

Automation-Direct has expanded its guided actuator lineup with compact 12-mm dual guide rod cylinders from Metal Work. Ideal for packaging and material handling, these double-acting cylinders feature 10-mm to 250-mm strokes, magnetic pistons, and integral sensor slots. Additionally, new durable acetal plastic silencers are now available in multiple NPT/BSPP sizes to reduce pneumatic exhaust noise.
Learn more.

Expanded injection molding capabilities

Pexco LLC has acquired Recto Molded Products and Legacy Extrusions, expanding its capabilities in complex injection molding, tooling, assembly, and engineered thermoplastic solutions for OEM manufacturers. The Cincinnati-based companies bring more than a century of manufacturing expertise, advanced production technologies, and value-added services that strengthen Pexco's ability to support customers from product design through full-scale production. Injection molding presses ranging from 55 to 500 tons.
Learn about Pexco and its value-added manufacturing services.

Custom 3D-printed steering wheel for jet dragster

Jet dragsters use General Electric J85 engines -- the same turbines pulled from U.S. military F5 Freedom Fighters -- mounted to a custom 26-ft chassis. The racers achieve quarter-miles in 5.5 sec, but standard metal parts can fail custom ergonomic needs. Traditional manufacturing of low-volume aluminum steering wheels demands long, 8-day lead times, high costs, and multi-piece assemblies. Larsen Motorsports solved this by replacing metal with continuous fiber 3D printing using the Markforged X7. Embedding continuous carbon fiber into an Onyx nylon matrix allowed them to target specific load paths, delivering a custom steering wheel that is stiffer, lighter, and faster to produce than aluminum.
View the video.

Application Spotlight: Light-duty ring in an air vent nozzle

Explore how a light-duty Spirolox^® retaining ring is used in an airplane air vent nozzle to regulate airflow. This application spotlight shows how the ring fits into a groove in the plastic housing, securing the nozzle during rotation. Designed for light loads and axial positioning, it offers a simple, economical solution that is easy to install and remove.
View this informative Smalley video.

Fasteners for automotive and agricultural equipment

Norm Fasteners has acquired an automotive fastener manufacturing plant in Plymouth, MI, expanding its North American footprint beyond sales, engineering, and logistics. The local facility produces metric fasteners (M4-M24) and engine bolts. Norm’s portfolio includes wheel bolts, studs, custom fasteners, and licensed MAThread^® and TAPTITE^® products, serving diverse automotive and industrial assembly needs.
Learn more or contact Belgin Tunce for more information.

3M Cooling Film for vehicle roofs launched

New 3M Cooling Film is a roof-applied heat-management solution designed to help keep vehicle cabins cooler, reduce cooling demand, and improve operational efficiency. The aftermarket product uses advanced thermal management technology to reflect more than 85% of solar radiation. Interior vehicle temperatures can be reduced by up to 10 degrees F with this product. Installs like graphics by professional installers using 3M adhesive technologies. Initially designed for fleet and rail operators.
Learn more.

Test your knowledge: High-temp adhesives

Put your knowledge to the test by trying to answer these key questions on how to choose the right high-temperature-resistant adhesive. The technical experts from Master Bond cover critical information necessary for the selection process, including questions on glass transition temperature and service temperature range. Some of the answers may surprise even the savviest of engineers.
Take the quiz.

New Air Holster Safety Air Gun Mount

EXAIR's new Model 5930 Air Holster provides a simple and convenient way to keep Safety Air Guns secure and within easy reach at workstations throughout a facility. Designed to give operators a designated location for their air gun when not in use, the Air Holster helps prevent misplaced tools while keeping work areas organized and efficient. Its practical design makes it an ideal addition to manufacturing, assembly, maintenance, and other industrial workstations where Safety Air Guns are frequently used.
Learn more.

Southco access hardware in rail applications

Discover how Southco's rail access hardware solutions help improve safety, reliability, and operational efficiency across modern rail networks. The video showcases a range of rail applications where Southco's access hardware plays a critical role, including driver cabins, lighting systems, tray tables, headrests, armrests, and other passenger and operator touchpoints. Designed to support dependable performance in demanding moving environments, Southco's solutions help operators streamline maintenance processes, minimize downtime, and enable more proactive asset management.
View the video.

Multi-zone tension leveler for hard-to-flatten alloys

Redex USA's Levelflex^® is a modular, multi-zone tension leveler engineered for continuous processing lines, including coating and heat treatment of aluminum alloys and where flatness is critical to coating adhesion and downstream formability. By stretching material within 95% of its yield strength, it corrects stubborn flatness defects in fewer passes. It comes in open-loop pure stretch or closed-loop tension measurement modes to optimize surface integrity and eliminate crossbow.
Learn more.

Hold any shape with ID and OD Form Holding Clamps

These simple OD and ID clamping solutions from Fixtureworks clamp onto your part in one easy operation, eliminating the need for custom fixtures. They allow users to clamp onto the inner or outer diameter of small-size, irregularly shaped work parts fast. Lots of options.
Learn more.

Could electric vehicle super batteries of the future be made of rock?

DTU researcher Mohamad Khoshkalam has invented a new material based on rock silicates to be used as a solid-state electrolyte that has the potential to replace lithium in future electric car batteries. [Credit: Photo by Frida Gregersen/Courtesy of Technical University of Denmark]

 

 

 

 

As more and more people switch to electric cars, industry needs to develop a new generation of lithium-free batteries that are at least as efficient, but more eco-friendly and cheaper, to produce. This requires new materials for the battery's main components -- anode, cathode, and electrolyte -- as well as developing new battery designs.

At the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), researcher Mohamad Khoshkalam has invented a material that has the potential to replace lithium in tomorrow's super battery: solid-state batteries based on potassium and sodium silicates. These are rock silicates, which are some of the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. The material is found in the stones you pick up on the beach or in your garden. A great advantage of the new material is that it is not sensitive to air and humidity. This makes it possible to mold it into a paper-thin layer inside the battery.

Patented superionic material
The potential of the milky-white, paper-thin material based on potassium silicate is huge. It is an inexpensive, eco-friendly material that can be extracted from silicates, which cover over 90% of the Earth's surface. The material can conduct ions at around 40 degrees C and is not sensitive to moisture.

This will make scaling up and future battery production easier, safer, and cheaper, as production can take place in an open atmosphere and at temperatures close to room temperature. The material also works without the addition of expensive and environmentally harmful metals such as cobalt, which is currently used in lithium-ion batteries to boost capacity and service life.

"The potential of potassium silicate as a solid-state electrolyte has been known for a long time, but in my opinion has been ignored due to challenges with the weight and size of the potassium ions. The ions are large and therefore move slower," says Khoshkalam.

To understand the potential and challenges of Khoshkalam's discovery, one must first understand the crucial role the electrolyte plays in a battery. The electrolyte in a battery can be a liquid or a solid material -- a so-called solid-state electrolyte. The electrolyte allows the ions to move between the battery's anode and cathode, thereby maintaining the electrical current generated during discharging and charging. In other words, the electrolyte is crucial for the battery capacity, charging time, lifespan, and safety.

The electrolyte's conductivity depends on how fast the ions can move in the electrolyte. The ions in rock silicates generally move slower than the ions in lithium-based liquid electrolytes or solid-state electrolytes, as they are larger and heavier. However, Khoshkalam has found a recipe for a superionic material of potassium silicate and a process that makes the ions move faster than in lithium-based electrolytes.

"The first measurement with a battery component revealed that the material has a very good conductivity as a solid-state electrolyte. I cannot reveal how I developed the material, as the recipe and the method are now patented," says Khoshkalam.

The battery everyone is waiting for
Both researchers and electric car manufacturers consider solid-state batteries to be the super battery of the future. Most recently, Toyota announced it expects to launch an electric car with a lithium solid-state battery in 2027-28. However, several car manufacturers have previously announced electric cars with solid-state batteries, only to subsequently sideline the technology.

In a solid-state battery, the ions travel through a solid material and not through a liquid, as in the regular AA+ lithium-ion batteries you can buy in the supermarket. There are several advantages to this; the ions can move faster through a solid material, making the battery more efficient and faster to charge.

A single battery cell can be made as thin as a piece of cardboard, where the anode, cathode, and solid-state electrolyte are ultra-thin layers of material. This means developers can make more powerful batteries that take up less space. This offers benefits on the road, as users will be able to drive up to 1,000 km on a single, 10-minute charge. In addition, a solid-state battery is more fireproof, as it does not contain combustible liquid.

Before we see the solid-state battery on the market, however, there are several challenges that need to be solved. The technology works well in the lab, but it is difficult and expensive to scale up.

First, the materials and battery research is both complex and time consuming, because the materials are super sensitive and require advanced labs and equipment. The lithium-ion batteries we use today took over 20 years to develop, and we're still developing them.

Second, we need to develop new ways of producing and sealing the batteries so the ultra-thin material layers in the battery cell do not break and have continuous contact in order to work. In the lab, researchers solve this by pressing the layers of the battery cell together at high pressure, but it is difficult to transfer to a commercial electric car battery, which consists of many battery cells.

Solid-state rock battery is high-risk technology
Unlike lithium solid-state batteries, solid-state batteries based on potassium and sodium silicates have a low TRL (technology readiness level). This means there is still a long way to go from discovery in the lab to getting the technology out into society and making a difference. The earliest we can expect to see them in new electric cars on the market is 10 years from now.

It is also a high-risk technology, where the chance of commercial success is small and the technical challenges are many. Nevertheless, Khoshkalam is full of optimism.

"We have shown that we can find a material for a solid-state electrolyte that is cheap, efficient, eco-friendly, and scalable -- and that even performs better than solid-state lithium-based electrolytes," he says.

A year after the discovery in the DTU lab, Khoshkalam has obtained a patent for the recipe and is in the process of establishing the start-up K-Ion, which will develop solid-state electrolyte components for battery companies. The K-ion is part of the DTU Earthbound initiative, where participants receive support to get their research out of the lab faster and into society to make an impact.

The next step for Khoshkalam and his team is to develop a demo battery that can show companies and potential investors that the material works. A prototype is expected to be ready within one to two years.

Source: Technical University of Denmark

Published July 2024

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