Tallinn University of Technology have created a cooperation agreement with the Estonian founded company Skeleton Technologies, a global leader in ultracapacitor energy storage. The agreement states the aim to “turn Estonia into a hub in energy storage and development.”
That sounds like an ambitious, if slightly vague, goal but both the university and the tech startup do have pedigree. This research and development agreement pulls together TalTech’s excellence in digitalization and electrical engineering and Skeleton’s already leading position in energy storage technology.
Skeleton’s ultracapacitors are based on ‘curved graphene’ technology and have applications in industrial and power grid applications as well as in cars and other forms of transportation. They offer a big increase in power and energy density over competing solutions and the company has also signed a major strategic agreement this week with one of Japan’s biggest conglomerates, Marubeni Corporation.
It’s not the first time that the two have collaborated and more than half of Skeleton’s current employees in Tallinn are current or former TalTech students. This new cooperation opens the possibility for Skeleton to share its experience as an industry leader with the university, researchers and students, with the aim of building up a strong energy storage competence in Estonia and strengthening research in energy storage both in Estonia and more widely in Europe.
The importance of cooperation between the private sector and the academy is emphasised by Tiit Land, Rector of TalTech: “The forthcoming collaboration will take R&D collaboration with Skeleton to a new level and add a new dimension as we begin to offer special training programs for engineers at Skeleton’s factory and R&D center."
Andres Krumme, a Professor of Polymer Technology at the university continues: “Our laboratory has active research cooperation with Skeleton Technologies during last 5 years. We have completed together a flexible, electrospun supercapacitor development project under European Space Agency (ESA) Industry Incentive Scheme and starting an electrospun separator development project under ESA General Support Technology Programme. All the research is dedicated to space industry, providing more durable and efficient energy storage products for Skeleton Technologies. Some of the results are patent pending. Also, an industrial doctoral student from Skeleton Technologies, studying in our laboratory should graduate during this year.”
Any agreements that bring cooperation between cutting edge academic research and tech businesses in the cleantech sector will hopefully bring future benefits for everyone.
