New study on printed batteries sees viable niche market for select companies

GLEN ALLEN, USA: NanoMarkets has released a new report on the opportunities available to companies that plan to sell printed batteries into a number of evolving end user markets. The report continues the firm's coverage of the thin battery market dating back to 2006 and is a companion to a May 2011 release on thin-film batteries.

Overall NanoMarkets considers the printed batteries business as a niche market that will create reasonable revenues in the coming years but fraught with risk and a business unlikely to support more than a few companies. The firm sees the market for printed batteries to be worth approximately $370 million in revenues in 2016 with smartcards the dominant application for most of the period forecast in the report with RFID, disposable electronics and sensor applications providing the bulk of the remaining revenues.

Companies that will survive will have to do more than simply be well capitalized, they will have to be proactive in pursuing a vertical integration strategy to find applications for their printed battery products or in building close alliances with OEMs.

Report details
The report projects both the volumes and the value of printed batteries used in powered smart cards, RFID, smart packaging, electronic shelf labels, cosmetic and pharmaceutical patches, smart bandages, military and civilian sensors, and disposable electronics. The battery chemistries covered in this report include the common zinc manganese dioxide and carbon zinc types.

The opportunities for using lithium battery chemistries in the printed battery space as well as more advanced chemistries that are still in the lab are also explored. The market forecasts in the report run from 2011 to 2018.

This report identifies both immediate and longer-term opportunities for printed batteries including how they may work with energy harvesting devices. In addition, it analyzes the product/marketing strategies that employed by leading printed batteries manufacturers and related companies. Among the firms discussed in this report are Blue Spark, Enfucell, Power ID, Ntera, PARC, Planar Energy Devices, Power Paper, Prelonic Technologies, Rocket, Solicore, VARTA Microbattery and VTT.