What is material handling equipment?

Material handling equipment is a general term for machines and devices used in the manufacturing and logistics industries. These devices are designed to streamline the transportation and handling of goods and reduce the burden on workers.

The market for material handling equipment is growing due to increasing demand in the manufacturing and logistics industries..

1. Progress automation: In the manufacturing and logistics industries, automation is progressing to improve work efficiency and productivity. Material handling equipment is an important element that plays a central role in an automated line. Demand for automated warehouse systems, automated guided vehicles (AGV), and robot arms is increasing.
2. E-commerce growth: With the spread of the Internet and the rapid growth of e-commerce, the logistics industry is playing an increasingly important role. Material handling equipment contributes to automating goods delivery and packing operations in warehouses.
3. Expanding global supply chains: As global supply chains expand, the handling and transportation of goods become more complex. Material handling equipment is vital in supporting the efficient flow of goods between multiple countries and regions.
4. A focus on ergonomics: With a focus on worker health and safety, material handling equipment helps reduce the strain on workers. Work environments are improving due to advances in weight reduction, miniaturization, and automation.

Due to these factors, the market for material handling equipment continues to grow. In addition, technological innovation and the emergence of new demand may further expand the market.

Needs for weight reduction and miniaturization of material handling equipment

On the other hand, in recent years, weight reduction and miniaturization have become important issues for material-handling equipment. The reason is as follows.

1. Increased efficiency: Lighter and smaller equipment allows you to work faster and smoother. Workers can operate equipment and move items faster.
2. Save Space: Working space on production lines and warehouses is valuable. Small equipment allows for efficient use of space and can be placed without affecting other equipment or worker traffic.
3. Worker Safety: Lighter equipment is easier for workers to operate and move, improving work safety. Heavy equipment is easy to lose balance when operating, increasing the risk of accidents and injuries.
4. Cost savings: Lighter and smaller equipment can use less materials and parts. This makes it possible to reduce manufacturing and transportation costs.

Issues with batteries for material handling equipment

Recently, the number of electric material handling equipment that uses batteries has increased.

Lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries play an important role as power sources for equipment, but there are still some issues.

1. Need to Replace Batteries: Batteries store a limited amount of energy and deplete over a period of time and amount of work. Continuous operation for a long time or use under heavy loads will deplete the battery charge. Rechargeable batteries require periodic charging. However, battery capacity decreases over time and may eventually require replacement.
2. Maintaining Spare Batteries: Maintaining spare batteries is important if your equipment requires continuous use or extended operation. This allows you to continue working smoothly without replacing the battery during work. Maintaining spare batteries includes charging, storage management, and setting an appropriate replacement schedule.
3. Low Machine Utilization Rate: The material handling equipment normally needs to be railed out for battery replacement or charging. If the operation stops for battery replacement or charging, the utilization rate of the equipment itself will also drop. Along with this, there are cases where the number of man-hours required for battery replacement is increased, and extra carts are required to prevent a drop in utilization rate.
4. Battery Life and Replacement Costs: Batteries have a limited lifespan and degrade depending on how long they are used and how many times they are charged and discharged. A deteriorated battery may have a lower capacity and a shorter operating time. Replacing deteriorated batteries may affect the performance and work efficiency of your equipment. Lithium-ion batteries, in particular, may have a shorter service life depending on how they are used, so the monitoring and management costs for replacement cannot be ignored.
5. Low Energy Efficiency: In response to soaring electricity prices, material handling equipment is also required to save energy. Lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries have high internal resistance and cannot recover sufficient regenerative energy.

Utilization of Hybrid Supercapacitors

What is a Hybrid SuperCapacitor?

Due to these issues, the use of Hybrid SuperCapacitors (HSCs) in material handling has been increasing in recent years.

A hybrid supercapacitor (HSC) uses a carbon-based material that can absorb lithium ions as a negative electrode material while using the principle of a general electric double-layer capacitor and adds lithium ions to improve the energy density.

Hybrid SuperCapacitors (HSCs) have high input/output

HSCs use activated carbon for the positive electrode, which is the same as for electric double-layer capacitors, and carbon material for the negative electrode, which is the same as for lithium-ion batteries. It is a next-generation power storage device.

One of the characteristics of hybrid supercapacitors is that the battery does not deteriorate even if it is rapidly charged with a large current.

In addition, thanks to its high output density, it can save more than 60% of the space required for installation in material handling equipment compared to lead-acid batteries.

Furthermore, hybrid supercapacitors have low internal resistance, so they have better regenerative energy recovery capabilities than lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries. By efficiently collecting regenerative energy, it is possible to reduce grid power consumption by up to 50%. This makes it possible to save energy in material handling equipment and contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions.

Hybrid SuperSapacitors (HSC) have a Long Life

Hybrid SuperCapacitors can be used at higher cell voltages than electric double-layer capacitors and have excellent high-temperature durability. This is because the pre-doping reduces the potential of the negative electrode to prevent the positive electrode potential from increasing, and at the same time, the deterioration of the negative electrode is also suppressed, resulting in high durability even after repeated charge-discharge cycles.

By using the long-life HSC for material handling, the need to stockpile spare batteries is reduced, and the frequency of battery replacement is greatly reduced, so management costs can be greatly reduced.

Advantages of Fast Charging

Hybrid SuperCapacitors can be charged in a short time and can be charged to 80% capacity in 20 seconds.

In addition, Hybrid SuperCapacitors can be operated while being charged, so if a charging station is installed at the work point of material handling, a 24-hour operation is possible without spare batteries or replacement work. As a result, the utilization rate of the equipment will improve.

Summary

The market for material handling equipment is expected to grow even more in the future due to increased demand in the manufacturing and logistics industries. We believe that there will be more and more cases of utilizing Hybrid supercapacitors (HSC) with the above characteristics.

Specific use cases can be found here. For inquiries about using HSC for material handling equipment, please contact us from here.

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