Energy Storage

Research into alternative, cleaner and renewable energy sources has been growing rapidly in the early 21^st century, but Princeton Applied Research has been enabling researchers in battery, fuel cell, capacitor, and solar research for decades prior to this century.

Princeton Applied Research provides a wide range of high-current potentiostats and booster systems to address the needs of the energy researcher.  While half-cell research may not require high currents, research on the performance of a battery, and certainly for a fuel cell, requires that the potentiostat provide high-current capability.  For the budget conscious, the VersaStat series (outfitted with an internal 2A option) is often adequate, but when matched with an external current booster (8, 10, or 20 amps), they become the perfect tools for evaluating the performance of an energy device.  The VersaStudio software makes it easy to perform charge/discharge cycling due to its flexible experiment setup and sequencing capabilities.  The PARSTAT 2273, with its 2A current, 100 V compliance and its booster systems, continues to redefine these applications.  The PowerSuite software contains the galvanodynamic impedance technique and has introduced a multi-sine technique ranging over 6 decades of frequency to make the fastest possible frequency spectrum measurements to help counter the effects of a drifting cell, especially at low frequencies.

Measurement facilities provided by our instruments required for the analysis of batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, and solar cells include:

• Charge/discharge cycling techniques for investigating battery performance
• High-speed data acquisition for mobile phone GSM and CDMA pulse discharge applications
• I-V curves for photovoltaic cell efficiency and performance
• Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) - widely used for the characterization of batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, and solar cells
• High Current capability with booster options for testing small cells and external power booster options for larger cells