Founded in 2010, Insplorion is a Swedish company which has developed a revolutionary proprietary sensor technology, NanoPlasmonic Sensing (NPS).
Developed over ten years at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, the NPS sensor technology was designed for analytic instruments for general research applications. Now, the company is offering commercial applications which use targeted sensing to measure the health of batteries.
Using NPS, processes at surfaces and interfaces can be scrutinised on the nanoscale. NPS is a new, sensitive, small and robust sensor technology is able to monitor the chemistry in most materials, including liquids and gases.
As the booklet explains, the NPS technology addresses a fundamental need in the energy sector as the role of batteries becomes ever more prominent. Insplorion quickly recognised the need for improved battery status information, which could reduce the inefficiency of battery use by measuring change inside the cell, and realised that NPS could provide this information. Now, the sensor technology can make a big impact on advancing the performance of lithium ion (li-ion) batteries.
How does the NPS sensor technology work?
The NPS sensor technology consists of nanoparticles placed at a thin optical fibre, and is placed inside the battery cell to minimise physical impact on the battery. This measures changes in chemical and physical composition, and is therefore a vast improvement over the current state-of-the-art technology, voltammetry.
The use of electric vehicles and battery energy storage solutions is currently limited by the high costs and safety risks of li-on batteries, but thanks to NPS, these factors can be reduced. The use of NPS technology can result in faster charging, lower material costs, and increased battery lifetimes.
There is an urgent need to improve the quality of li-ion batteries, as the electrification of transport will be fundamental to preventing climate change. Insplorion NPS enhanced batteries are an elegant sensor technology solution which could help to bring the transition to electric vehicles a step closer to reality.
