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January 2016 • SMT Magazine 23 kelvin Fernandez is global product line manager at nordson efD. To reach him click here. including stand-alone, tabletop, and integrat- ed—to fit in-line with manufacturing cells. The appropriate size and configuration of the plat- form depends on the size of the part, the de- sired throughput, and the manufacturing pro- cess layout. Manufacturers opting for stand-alone or tabletop dispensing systems should consider scalability. Because some systems can be con- figured with multiple dispensing heads, deploy- ing a slightly larger platform can double the throughput. Manufacturers should also under- stand their application requirements in order to select the most appropriate system, especially because the medical device industry uses many specialized fluids. As medical device dimensions shrink, man- ufacturers are shifting to the use of robotics to perform a range of processing tasks, including fluid dispensing. Automated dispensing systems provide faster cycle times, higher throughputs, and better quality than manual systems, result- ing in higher yields. To get the most out of an automated system, manufacturers should assess their processes, dispensing application require- ments, challenges, resources, and near-future goals before attempting to incorporate automa- tion into their production operations. SMT energy storage system owners could see sig- nificant savings from a new flow battery tech- nology that is projected to cost 60% less than today's standard flow batteries. utilizing inexpensive organic molecules, the aqueous flow battery, described in a paper pub- lished in the journal advanced energy Materials, is expected to cost $180 per kilowatt-hour once the technology is fully developed. "Moving from transition metal elements to synthesized molecules is a significant advance- ment because it links battery costs to manufactur- ing rather than commodity metals pricing," said imre gyuk, energy storage program manager for the Department of energy's office of electricity Delivery and energy reliability (oe), which funded this research. "The battery's water-based liquid electrolytes are also de - signed to be a drop-in replace- ment for current flow battery sys- tems," said pnnl materials scien- tist Wei Wang, one of the paper's corresponding authors. "current flow battery owners can keep their existing infra- structure, drain their more expensive electrolytes and replace them with pnnl's electrolytes." both flow and solid batteries, such as the lithium-ion batteries that power most electric vehicles and smartphones today, were invented in the 1970s. carrying much more energy in a smaller space, lithium-ion batteries now make up about 70% of the world's working, grid-connect- ed batteries, according to data from Doe-oe's global Energy Storage Database. However, issues with performance, safety and lifespan can limit the technology's use for stationary energy stor- age. flow batteries, on the other hand, store their active chemicals separately until power is need- ed, greatly reducing safety concerns. vanadium- based flow batteries have become more popular in recent years, especially after pnnl developed a new vanadium battery design in 2011 that increased storage capacity by 70%. While vanadi- um chemistries are expected to be the standard for some time, future flow battery cost reduc- tions will require less expensive alternatives such as organics. New Battery Technology Offers Lower-cost Energy Storage WHy MEDTECH ManuFaCTurErS SHOuLD auTOMaTE FLuID DISPEnSInG OPEraTIOnS FEATurE