First sales of En' Safe current collectors herald official move into new market for Armor

Thermal transfer ribbon specialist Armor has officially entered the energy storage market after the first sales of its En’ Safe current collectors, a technology it has been working on for a number of years.

En’ Safe is made of ultra-thin aluminum or copper foils coated with a special high-tech film designed to protect from chemical attacks, reduce electrical internal resistance and improve adherence

En’ Safe is made of ultra-thin aluminum or copper foils coated with a special high-tech film designed to protect from chemical attacks, reduce electrical internal resistance and improve adherence.

The product has been designed to provide manufacturers with a completely new current collector for added security, greater performance and a longer service life of Lithium-ion batteries and ultracapacitors. Armor said these products are experiencing 'significant growth' – 20 percent annual growth for Lithium-ion battery components and 30 percent annual growth for ultracapacitors.

Armor has used its knowledge in the high-precision coating of thin layers upon ultra-thin substrates, honed in the carbon paper and thermal transfer ribbon markets over five decades, to develop En’ Safe, and said the move into energy storage is in response to the growing need for greater energy independence by users in a more and more mobile world, and a ‘concrete solution’ for improving the safety and performance of batteries, thus augmenting smartphone, laptop or electric vehicles and tramway capacities.

Armor started developing this new offering in 2009 with primary client feedback reported as ‘extremely positive’ and the decision made in 2013 to invest in a dedicated production plant.

In total, Armor said it has invested 15 million EUR (16 million USD) in this new activity, and is predicting turnover of 30 million EUR (32 million USD) by 2020.

Further, a recruitment drive will see 30 new employees hired to work in this area.

This new activity is part of Armor Sustainable Energy, a segment of the business dedicated to developing technologies and products which favor sustainable development and energy transition. Armor Sustainable Energy brings together around 30 individuals, most of whom are engineers, and two being doctors of chemistry and processes.

Hubert de Boisredon, Armor Group chief executive officer, said: ‘En’ Safe signals a historical innovation for Armor.

‘We are launching a new activity which responds to the challenges surrounding energy transition. With current collector films for batteries, Armor now possesses three pillars of development and is expecting commercialization of versatile and thin organic photovoltaic films to begin in 2016.’

Read more about Armor’s current growth efforts in the thermal transfer market in Labels & Labeling, issue 2, 2015