Vorbeck Materials and its partners Princeton University and Pacific Northwest National Labs (PNNL) have won the R&D 100 Award, an annual award instituted by R&D Magazine in honor of 100 most important technological and scientific products and innovations of the year.
The R&D 100 Award is in recognition of Vorbeck’s collaborative work with PNNL and Princeton University in commercialization of graphene technology to promote application in consumer electronics and electric vehicles. Vor-x, the patented graphene material from Vorbeck, has been demonstrated to drastically enhance the performance of lithium ion batteries. The work carried out in collaboration with PNNL and Professor Ilhan Aksay at Princeton University will give way for batteries with longer durability and quicker recharge capability. This would dramatically reduce charging time for electric vehicles to just a few hours and for smart phones to just a few minutes. The benefits can be extended to other applications of lithium ion batteries such as power tools and power laptops.
Vorbeck, which is the only company to be granted EPA approval for commercial manufacture and sale of graphene-based products, has also formed an alliance with Hardwire LLC, Maryland to employ the new batteries in hybrid defence vehicles.
The R&D Awards ceremony will be held on November 1 at Orlando. Instituted in 1963, the awards which are at times referred to as the “Oscars of Innovation”, have honored some ground-breaking innovations that went on to become world-famous and ubiquitous such as the HDTV in 1998, the Nicoderm anti-smoking patch in 1992 and in the past, the fax machine in 1975 and ATM in 1973. The complete list of winners for this year is available at www.rdmag.com.