Industrial battery material titans in lawsuit over NMC
The high-tech patent wars have spread to a new front, engaging two of the world’s largest industrial companies in a multibillion-dollar court battle over lithium-ion batteries. At issue is a battery chemistry that, while little known to the public, many experts believe currently holds the best chance of electric cars penetrating the mass market.
The case pits Germany’s BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, against Belgium’s Umicore, one of the biggest makers of battery materials. Filed by BASF on Feb. 20, 2015 in US federal court in Delaware, the lawsuit – which has been reported only by patent blogs – accuses Umicore of selling a key battery component to which BASF holds an exclusive license. It also alleges that Umicore threatened to sue firms if they gave their business to the German company. The suit seeks billions of dollars in alleged damages.
Read more at qz.com
Scanning electron micrograph (colored by software) of the cathode particles produced by BASF.
Jon Fold von Bülow
Jon Fold von Bülow recieved his Cand. Scient. in Nanoscience from University of Copenhagen in 2011 and is currently working with upscaling Li- and Na-ion battery materials to the 100+ kg scale for Haldor Topsøe A/S.
Jon's main interest lies in energy technologies for the future and he started working with fusion energy at Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy. He has since developed a growing interest in technologies that are closer to potential industrial application. He is a highly dedicated academic as well as a very active professional and have initiated and participated in many different projects.
His studies within nanotechnological material science and affiliation with Risø National Laboratories has taken him to Germany, China and the US, where he has collaborated independently with several international research groups. He has so far succeeded in pushing two academic projects to industrial application, first with the Danish company Coloplast A/S and recently with a California-based battery start-up – an invention that is currently being US patented.
Jon has conducted most of his work on Li-batteries in the facilities of California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) as a research scholar at UCSB-MIT-Caltech Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB). The manganese based cathode materials he fabricated during this period were all tuned for high-power applications and covers synthesis of various manganese oxides from solution, molten and solid states.
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