In order to develop new battery materials, new solar panels, new fuel cells and many other useful products, electrochemists need to test their system with different variations. Countless variations. Testing the variations is time consuming and yet not very productive. To liberate time and creativity of researchers and students, a research group has developed tools to automate all the dull and repetitive tasks. The copyright of the products have been licensed to a spin-out company, “Nordic Electrochemistry”.
How does it work?
The first products of the company are the software package EC4U and the modular potentiostat ECi-200. Together the two products are designed for complete ease of automatization.
Potentiostats are hardware units built to control electrochemical measurements. Because ECi-200 is modular, the collection of potentiostats can be expanded to control even the most complex of experiments.
The software package, EC4U, can control and synchronize the various hardware. From potentiostats, hotplates and timers over the injection of gasses and chemicals to weighing instruments and thermometers. This allows the researcher to programme an entire series of test runs, and then simply leave the lab to go do all the fun and creative stuff that usually inspire people to become scientists in the first place.
The first five EC4U installations have already been sold to foreign universities. Nordic electrochemistry initially expects to service customers from universities in Denmark and abroad, but is hoping in time to help industrial enterprises when they engage in boring and time consuming electrochemical research.