Hybrid solid-state system harvests more hydrogen from water

(From left) Junyoung Kim, Professor Guntae Kim, and Ohhun Gwona are part of the team who developed the Hybrid-SOEC, a more efficient new system for producing hydrogen(Credit:UNIST)

Clean and plentiful, hydrogen is a promising fuel source, but there are a few problems standing in the way of it becoming mainstream. South Korean scientists have now developed a new system for producing hydrogen from water, which that they say overcomes some of these issues and produces the gas more efficiently than other water electrolysis systems.

The new device was developed by a research team consisting of scientists from the 

• Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), 
• Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) and 
• Sookmyung Women's University, 

and is based on an existing design called a solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC).

These work like other electrolyzers in that an electrical current splits water into its constituent molecules – hydrogen and oxygen – which can then be harvested. The difference is that in this setup, both electrodes are solid-state, as is the electrolyte that carries the ions between them.

This has a few advantages over systems that use liquid electrolytes – namely, 

• the liquids need to be topped up occasionally, and over time they tend to corrode other components. 
• And since solid-state electrolyzers operate at higher temperatures, they don't need as much electrical energy to function because they can draw energy from that heat.

But SOECs still have room for improvement. There are two main designs that use different electrolytes: 

• One allows only oxygen ions to pass through, and 
• the other only hydrogen ions. 

In either case, that one-way street limits the amount of hydrogen that can be produced.

So the researchers developed a new Hybrid-SOEC, which uses a mixed-ion conductor to transport both negatively-charged oxygen ions and positively-charged hydrogen ions (protons) at the same time. The end result had all the benefits of a solid-state electrolyzer, with improved efficiency.

"By controlling the driving environment of the hydrogen ion conductive electrolyte, a 'mixed ion conductive electrolyte' in which two ions pass can be realized," says Junyoung Kim, first author of the study. "In Hybrid-SOEC where this electrolyte was first introduced, water electrolysis occurred at both electrodes, which results in significant increase in total hydrogen production."

Using the mixed-ion conductor and electrodes made of layered perovskite, the Hybrid-SOEC produced 1.9 liters (0.5 gal) of hydrogen per hour, running at a cell voltage of 1.5 V and a temperature of 700° C (1,292° F). The researchers say that's four times more efficient than existing water electrolysis systems, and after running the device continuously for 60 hours, there were no signs of that performance degrading.

The research was published in the journal Nano Energy.

Source: UNIST

ORIGINAL: New Atlas

Michael Irving

December 28th, 2017

Scientists Develop A Battery That Can Run For More Than A Decade

Credit: Harvard University

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a new flow battery that stores energy in organic molecules dissolved in neutral pH water. This new chemistry allows for a

• non-toxic,
• non-corrosive battery
• with an exceptionally long lifetime and
• offers the potential to significantly decrease the costs of production.

The research, published in ACS Energy Letters, was led by Michael Aziz, the Gene and Tracy Sykes Professor of Materials and Energy Technologies and Roy Gordon, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science.

A Neutral pH Aqueous Organic–Organometallic Redox Flow Battery with Extremely High Capacity Retention
Eugene S. Beh†‡ , Diana De Porcellinis†#, Rebecca L. Gracia∥, Kay T. Xia∥, Roy G. Gordon*†‡, and Michael J. Aziz*†

† John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States
‡ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States
# Department of Chemical Science and Technologies, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, 00133 Rome, Italy
∥ Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States
ACS Energy Lett., 2017, 2 (3), pp 639–644
DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00019
Publication Date (Web): February 7, 2017
Copyright © 2017 American Chemical Society
*E-mail: gordon@chemistry.harvard.edu., *E-mail: maziz@harvard.edu.

Abstract

We demonstrate an aqueous organic and organometallic redox flow battery utilizing reactants composed of only earth-abundant elements and operating at neutral pH. The positive electrolyte contains bis((3-trimethylammonio)propyl)ferrocene dichloride, and the negative electrolyte contains bis(3-trimethylammonio)propyl viologen tetrachloride; these are separated by an anion-conducting membrane passing chloride ions. Bis(trimethylammoniopropyl) functionalization leads to ∼2 M solubility for both reactants, suppresses higher-order chemical decomposition pathways, and reduces reactant crossover rates through the membrane. Unprecedented cycling stability was achieved with capacity retention of 99.9943%/cycle and 99.90%/day at a 1.3 M reactant concentration, increasing to 99.9989%/cycle and 99.967%/day at 0.75–1.00 M; these represent the highest capacity retention rates reported to date versus time and versus cycle number. We discuss opportunities for future performance improvement, including chemical modification of a ferrocene center and reducing the membrane resistance without unacceptable increases in reactant crossover. This approach may provide the decadal lifetimes that enable organic–organometallic redox flow batteries to be cost-effective for grid-scale electricity storage, thereby enabling massive penetration of intermittent renewable electricity.

Flow batteries store energy in liquid solutions in external tanks—the bigger the tanks, the more energy they store. Flow batteries are a promising storage solution for renewable, intermittent energy like wind and solar but today’s flow batteries often suffer degraded energy storage capacity after many charge-discharge cycles, requiring periodic maintenance of the electrolyte to restore the capacity.

By modifying the structures of molecules used in the positive and negative electrolyte solutions, and making them water soluble, the Harvard team was able to engineer a battery that loses only one percent of its capacity per 1000 cycles.

“Lithium ion batteries don’t even survive 1000 complete charge/discharge cycles,” said Aziz.

“Because we were able to dissolve the electrolytes in neutral water, this is a long-lasting battery that you could put in your basement,” said Gordon. “If it spilled on the floor, it wouldn’t eat the concrete and since the medium is noncorrosive, you can use cheaper materials to build the components of the batteries, like the tanks and pumps.”

This reduction of cost is important. The Department of Energy (DOE) has set a goal of building a battery that can store energy for less than $100 per kilowatt-hour, which would make stored wind and solar energy competitive to energy produced from traditional power plants.

“If you can get anywhere near this cost target then you change the world,” said Aziz. “It becomes cost effective to put batteries in so many places. This research puts us one step closer to reaching that target.”

“This work on aqueous soluble organic electrolytes is of high significance in pointing the way towards future batteries with vastly improved cycle life and considerably lower cost,” said Imre Gyuk, Director of Energy Storage Research at the Office of Electricity of the DOE. “I expect that efficient, long duration flow batteries will become standard as part of the infrastructure of the electric grid.”

The key to designing the battery was to first figure out why previous molecules were degrading so quickly in neutral solutions, said Eugene Beh, a postdoctoral fellow and first author of the paper. By first identifying how the molecule viologen in the negative electrolyte was decomposing, Beh was able to modify its molecular structure to make it more resilient.

Next, the team turned to ferrocene, a molecule well known for its electrochemical properties, for the positive electrolyte.

“Ferrocene is great for storing charge but is completely insoluble in water,” said Beh. “It has been used in other batteries with organic solvents, which are flammable and expensive.”

But by functionalizing ferrocene molecules in the same way as with the viologen, the team was able to turn an insoluble molecule into a highly soluble one that could also be cycled stably.

“Aqueous soluble ferrocenes represent a whole new class of molecules for flow batteries,” said Aziz.

The neutral pH should be especially helpful in lowering the cost of the ion-selective membrane that separates the two sides of the battery. Most flow batteries today use expensive polymers that can withstand the aggressive chemistry inside the battery. They can account for up to one third of the total cost of the device. With essentially salt water on both sides of the membrane, expensive polymers can be replaced by cheap hydrocarbons.

This research was coauthored by Diana De Porcellinis, Rebecca Gracia, and Kay Xia. It was supported by the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability of the DOE and by the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

With assistance from Harvard’s Office of Technology Development (OTD), the researchers are working with several companies to scale up the technology for industrial applications and to optimize the interactions between the membrane and the electrolyte. Harvard OTD has filed a portfolio of pending patents on innovations in flow battery technology.

ORIGINAL: Daily Accord
Credit: Harvard University
Feb 9, 2017 

Can we synthetically engineer C4 photosynthesis?

“Photosynthesis as the engine for life on earth has high engineering potential, which has not yet been fully exploited…By step-wise identification of all the components needed for engineering, it will eventually become possible to employ this powerful machinery to increase yields for the future.”

Schuler, ML, Mantegazza, O & Weber, APM, 2016, ‘Engineering C4 photosynthesis into C3 chassis in the synthetic biology age’. The Plant Journal, vol. 87, pp. 62

These lines from the conclusion of the review we write about here are indicative of why so much effort is being put into understanding the more productive C4 photosynthetic system and working to increase important crop yields with it.

Schuler, Mantegazza and Weber’s article in the special issue of The Plant Journal on plant synthetic biology provides an excellent overview of the current status, significant hurdles and possible solutions to those problems of the current research aimed at bolstering rice yield by converting it from the common C3 photosynthesis system to the more efficient C4 system. We’ve previously written about C4 photosynthesis here and here.

C4 photosynthesis

C4 photosynthesis has evolved independently at least 66 times and is likely linked to a sudden drop in atmospheric CO2 levels sometime in the past. It is characterised by the concentration of CO2 around Rubisco (ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase), the carbon-assimilating enzyme, reducing the competition that CO2 has with O2 to interact with the enzyme. More CO2 means greater growth and reduced photorespiration, an energy requiring process that is used to remove the O2 reaction products.

The concentration of CO2 in C4 photosynthesis is usually caused by a two-celled (but one-celled is possible) distribution of the process of fixing carbon and the process of reducing it. The two-celled system combines mesophyll (M) cells, which take up the CO2 from the leaf air space, and the bundle sheath (BS) cells, where the Rubisco enzymes reside, the final destination of CO2 for fixation and entry into the Calvin-Benson cycle. These two cells are arranged in concentric layers (called ‘Kranz Anatomy’) around leaf veins, maximising the contact between the two types of cells and increasing the transport of the molecules between them.

M cells convert CO2 to bicarbonate and then into the 4 carbon compound oxaloacetate via an enzyme that doesn’t react with oxygen. The modified compound is then passed to the BS cells where it is reformed into CO2 and fixed by Rubisco to enter the Calvin-Benson cycle.

Basically, by assimilating CO2 away from Rubisco, the plant reduces the ability of Rubisco to interact with O2 and instead it is steadily fed with CO2 from the M cells.

Of course, this description of the process is simplified and although most of the process and main enzymes that carry out the process are known, there are still gaps in our knowledge.

Recent Advances

The gathering of increasing amounts of genomic, trascriptomic and metabolimic data continue to improve our knowledge of C4 photosynthesis, how it evolved and how we might transition C3 crops to use the more efficient carbon fixation method.

Important C4 crop species have had their genomes sequenced and quantitative analysis of transcriptomes have begun to unravel the mystery behind the genes upregulated and downregulated, and the stage of development that these regulatory differences occur, that lead the formation of the Kranz anatomy. What we are finding is that many of the genes involved in C4 photosynthesis exist in C3 plants but are differently regulated at early stages to differentiate the BS and M cells, enable high throughput of metabolites between the cells and to increase the size of vascular tissue to support the increased activity.

Engineering C4 photosynthesis

Our initial attempts to engineer C4 photosynthesis relied on over-expressing one or more enzymes in C3 plants. However, given the enzymes involved in the C4 system are used in the C3 system in multiple alternative pathways, the effects of over-expression were multiple, varied and didn’t have the desire result. The compartmentalisation of reactions, whether in the single or two-celled reactions that make up the distinctive photosystem, is complex.

The notion of being able to engineer C4 photosynthesis is comforted by a number of factors:

1. The main enzymes are already present in C3 photosynthesis;
2. Characteristics such as the passing of metabolites between cells is seen in C3 species such as tobacco plants; and
3. Nature has done it herself in the past on multiple, independent occasions.

But the authors of the paper also note a number of engineering steps that need to be accomplished if we are re-enact evolution ourselves;

1. Higher order veins need to be initiated in plants (it previously being shown that such physical properties were already evolved in plants that subsequently evolved the Kranz anatomy);
2. The ratio of BS to M cells must be increased, ideally in a similar concentric organisation to Kranz anatomy;
3. Enlarging and enriching BS cells with additional chloroplasts;
4. Increasing the connection between M and BS cells;
5. Engineering the different morphologies of the chloroplasts to mimic the morphologies of chloroplasts found in M and BS cells;
6. Mirror the differing roles that M and BS cells take on in C4 photosynthesis so Rubisco reduction of CO2 occurs only in the BS cells with M cells feeding CO2 to the BS cells and excluding the oxidation of O2.

The tools we need

If we are to achieve success we still have some tools to develop and refine.

Chief among this list is a model plant that can be engineered and tested easily with speedy regeneration without requiring too much growing room. The authors point out that rice crops have some limitations in these criteria but identify Brachypodium distachyon as a model C3 plant with a small, annotated genome with quick flowering time, low growing space requirements and an efficient transformation protocol. A model such as this could hasten the engineering, testing and data gathering on conversion which can then be tested on important crop species.

A C4 model plant with similar characteristics is also required. Setaria viridis has previously been suggested as a possible model plant, as has the Fast Flowering Mini Maize.

The ability to drive and control expression of a transgene is also required. Cis-regulatory modules that promote gene expression are still under development in the wider plant synthetic biology area. This leaves a chasm between the tools we have to hand and the possibility that a large number of genes need to be differentially expressed in order to convert C3 photosynthesis to C4 photosynthesis.

Huge strides are being made with genetic manipulation, particularly with the discovery and modification of the CRISPR/Cas 9 system. But, according to the article, the maximum number of genes successfully introduced into a plant, at present, is 9. To induce C4 photosynthesis in a C3 plant, we may need the ability to stably transform a far larger number of genes plus regulatory elements, and do so without disrupting the remainder of the genome or the phenotype characteristics of our food crops.

Even when we do have these tools at the ready, we are still missing some vital information about the genes and regulatory elements that compose C4 photosynthesis. Increasing our knowledge of minutia of genetic composition and regulation of C4 systems compared to C3 systems is still a top priority. Identifying genera with the underlying predisposition that have allowed species within it to evolve from C3 to C4 for comparative analysis, particularly species displaying characteristics of a C3-C4 intermediate with sister taxa displaying C3 and C4 phenotypes, would be idyllic in assisting the study of the evolution. The authors highlight Morandia and Parthenium generas as possible true intermediates between C3 and C4 plants. Programs such as the Grass Phylogeny Working Group and the 1KP (1000 plants) project will greatly assist identifying and genotyping suitable candidates for understanding the genetics behind enhancing crop photosynthesis.

And some suggested means of pushing the research…

It is great to see that not only have the authors elucidated quite extensively the current knowledge and gaps within the field of C4 photosynthesis engineering, but have also suggested a couple of ways of advancing the research.

The first idea they suggested is synthetically replicating a simplified C4 photosynthetic system using known genetic components. The system replicates the targeting of specific enzymes to create a two-celled photosynthesis construct, limiting Rubisco to the BS cells using RNAi to interfere with its transcription in M cells. The article highlights specific transporters that can be used to transport the metabolites between the two cells.

A second suggested idea is using brute force to direct a speedy evolution of a C3 or C3-C4 intermediate species into a C4 plant. Identifying the minimum genetic requirements of a C4 plant in a candidate crop would then be followed by the repetitive growth under the selective pressure of a low CO2 atmosphere. By repeating genomic and transcription analysis of the evolving plant (if successful), a ‘mud-map’ of the road from C3 to C4 plants can be generated and be of enormous use to research seeking to synthetically install the same machinery.

Conclusion

Although its behind a pay-wall, get your hands on this article. Whether it be for a background in C4 photosynthesis or as a springboard for your own research, it is an area of immense potential that should be worthy of an X prize.

ORIGINAL: Legume Laboratory

September 6, 2016

50 Smartest Companies 2016

50 Smartest Companies 2016. Credit: Illustration by Matthew Hollister

1. Amazon
2. Baidu
3. Illumina
4. Tesla Motors
5. Aquion Energy
6. Mobileye
7. 23andMe
8. Alphabet
9. Spark Therapeutics
10. Huawei
11. First Solar
12. Nvidia
13. Cellectis
14. Enlitic
15. Facebook
16. SpaceX
17. Toyota
18. Airware
19. IDE Technologies
20. Tencent
21. Didi Chuxing
22. Oxford Nanopore
23. 24M
24. Alibaba
25. Bristol-Myers Squibb
26. Microsoft
27. Fanuc
28. Sonnen
29. Improbable
30. Movidius
31. Intrexon
32. Carbon
33. Bosch
34. T2 Biosystems
35. Editas Medicine
36. Nestlé
37. RetroSense Therapeutics
38. Line, subsidiary of Naver
39. TransferWise
40. Veritas Genetics
41. FireEye
42. SevenBridges
43. Slack
44. Coupang
45. IBM
46. Snapchat
47. Africa Internet Group
48. LittleBits
49. Intel
50. Monsanto

Our editors pick the 50 companies that best combine innovative technology with an effective business model.

Each year we identify 50 companies that are “smart” in the way they create new opportunities. Some of this year’s stars are large companies, like Amazon and Alphabet, that are using digital technologies to redefine industries. Others are wrestling with technological changes: companies like Microsoft, Bosch, Toyota, and Intel. Also on the list are ambitious startups like 23andMe, a pioneer in consumer-accessible DNA testing; 24M, a reinventor of battery technology; and Didi Chuxing, a four-year-old ride-hailing app that’s beating Uber in the Chinese market. Still, despite the excitement of recent advances in such fields as artificial intelligence and genomic medicine, technology has failed to energize the overall economy. In our opening essay, we explore why that is so and what needs to change.

1 Amazon

Headquarters: Seattle, Washington

Industry: Internet & Digital Media

Status: Public

Valuation: $337 billion

Last year we included Amazon on our list of the 50 Smartest Companies for incorporating robots into its fulfillment centers. This year the standout is the surprising success of its Alexa Voice Service and the growing family of devices it powers (the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Tap). Alexa makes it easy to search the Web, play music, and adjust your lights and thermostat—just by speaking inside your home. Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud-computing operation, also deserves notice as the Industry: leader and Amazon’s fastest-growing and most profitable division.

$89.99 What the Echo Dot, the most affordable device to feature Alexa Voice Service, sells for.

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2 Baidu

Headquarters: Beijing, China

Industry: Internet & Digital Media

Status: Public

Valuation: $55 billion

Outside its core business of Internet search and ad sales, Baidu is doing notable work on speech recognition and conversational interfaces. In 2015, it announced the development of a speech recognition engine called Deep Speech 2 that uses deep learning to recognize spoken words, sometimes more accurately than a person can. Baidu conducts AI research in part to improve its products and services and better compete with rivals such as Alibaba and Tencent. The company is also aggressively pursuing the autonomous-car market and recently established a team in Silicon Valley to lead research and engineering in computer vision, robotics, and sensors, among other areas.

100 Baidu plans to employ more than 100 autonomous-car researchers and engineers in California by year’s end.

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3 Illumina

Headquarters: San Diego, California

Industry: Biotech

Status: Public

Valuation: $20 billion

The world’s largest DNA-sequencing company hopes to expand its technology’s role in diagnosing illness. This year it formed a new companyto develop blood tests that cost $1,000 or less and can detect many types of cancer before symptoms arise, greatly improving the chances of survival. The spinoff, called Grail, is being headed by Jeff Huber, a former senior Google executive who lost his wife to colon cancer. The testing concept, sometimes called a “liquid biopsy,” uses Illumina’s high-speed sequencing machines to scour a person’s blood for fragments of DNA released by cancer cells.

$2.2 billion Revenue reached last year, up 19 percent from the previous year.

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4 Tesla Motors

Headquarters: Palo Alto, California

Industry: Transportation

Status: Public

Valuation: $28 billion

Tesla topped this list last year for its plan to extend its battery technology from cars to residential and commercial applications. This year, Tesla’s Autopilot technology stands out for the way it integrates feedback from a camera, radar, ultrasonic sensors, and GPS to aid drivers on highways, help them avoid collisions, and assist them in parking. Besides advancing semi-autonomous driving, Tesla is also making electric vehicles more accessible by introducing its most affordable car yet, the $35,000 Model 3.

50 percent According to CEO Elon Musk, drivers have a 50 percent lower chance of having an accident when driving with Tesla Autopilot.

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5 Aquion Energy

Headquarters: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Industry: Energy

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $190 million raised

Aquion continues to raise money for its innovative batteries, which have made it a successful startup in a notoriously tough Industry:. Investors include Bill Gates and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as well as the corporate venture capital arms of energy Industry: giants Shell and Total. Invented by Carnegie Mellon professor Jay Whitacre, the batteries are made with nontoxic materials that can provide long-term storage of energy from solar, wind, and other intermittent sources at a very low cost. Whitacre says the company’s been disciplined in its development of a manufacturing process, basing it on existing models and materials to improve its chance of working.

Backers Include Bill Gates, Shell.

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6 Mobileye

Headquarters: Jerusalem, Israel

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Public

Valuation: $8 billion

How can automakers compete with companies developing self-driving vehicles, such as Google parent Alphabet? One increasingly popular option is to partner with Mobileye, which makes machine vision systems and motion detection algorithms that warn drivers when they are deviating from driving lanes or about to collide with cars in front of them. Mobileye is already working on autopilot and collision avoidance technology for Audi, BMW, General Motors, Nissan, Tesla, Volkswagen, and Volvo and recently inked an agreement with two undisclosed automakers to provide systems for fully autonomous cars.

600 Number of employees who are annotating the images used to train its autonomous driving system.

7 23andMe

Headquarters: Mountain View, California

Industry: Biotech

Status: Private

Valuation: $1.1 billion Valuation:

Now focused on getting its customers to share their data with medical researchers, 23andMe has partnered with leading medical centers, including Stanford and Mount Sinai. To date, the company has gathered DNA from more than one million customers, more than 80 percent of whom they say are participating in research.

One million The company has sequenced the DNA of more than one million customers.

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8 Alphabet

Headquarters: Mountain View, California

Industry: Internet & Digital Media

Status: Public

Valuation: $491 billion

Google parent company Alphabet pursues many projects, including a number of riskier “moon shot” technologies, but its ventures into AI and autonomous driving are the standouts. Earlier this year, DeepMind—which is part of Google—attracted global attention for beating a world champion player at the game Go. The matchup revealed the sophistication of its AI technology. Alphabet also continues to work on fully autonomous cars and recently signed a deal to incorporate its technology into Chrysler minivans—its first partnership with a major automaker.

1.6 million Number of miles Alphabet’s autonomous cars have driven so far.

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9 Spark Therapeutics

Headquarters: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Industry: Biotech

Status: Public

Valuation: $918 million

The company’s focus is on developing one-time, life-altering treatments for debilitating genetic diseases, a whole new model of personalized, precise treatment. Many of its key personnel come from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and their work focuses on finding treatments for rare diseases where no or only palliative therapies exist currently.

Collaborators Corporate collaborators include Pfizer, Genable Technologies, and Clearside Biomedical.

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10 Huawei

Headquarters: Shenzhen, China

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Public

Valuation: $1 billion

Huawei has been selling cell phones for more than a decade and smartphones since 2009, but it long struggled to break into the premium-device and U.S. markets. Its 2015 launch of the Nexus 6P phone, which it co-designed and manufactured for Google, showed it can make high-end, high-quality smartphones. Continued strength in entry-level devices, coupled with growing clout in more expensive phones, helped Huawei grow smartphone shipments 58 percent year-over-year and become the no. 3 smartphone vendor worldwide.

27.5 million Number of smartphones Huawei shipped in the first quarter of 2016, according to market researcher IDC.

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11First Solar

Headquarters: Tempe, Arizona

Industry: Energy

Status: Public

Valuation: $5 billion

First Solar designs and manufactures solar panels using a low-cost thin-film semiconductor technology and also develops solar farms that utilities can use. It differs from many solar companies in that it is in the black, making $546 million in profit in 2015 on nearly $3.6 billion in revenue.

$546 million Profits earned in 2015.

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12 Nvidia

Headquarters: Santa Clara, California

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Public

Valuation: $22 billion

A number of chip makers are targeting the autonomous-car market, andNvidia is distinguishing itself by offering an entire platform and accompanying software development kit for self-driving cars. The platform uses AI to give vehicles “360° situational awareness.” Nvidia says that more than 50 automakers (including Audi, BMW, Ford, and Tesla), suppliers, developers, and research institutions are experimenting with the platform. Nvidia is also using its strength in gaming graphics chips to move into the VR market and released a platform (chip module plus developer kit) for drones last year.

$1.3 billion Revenue increased 13 percent in the most recent quarter, to $1.3 billion, compared with $1.15 billion a year ago.

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13 Cellectis

Headquarters: New York City, New York

Industry: Biotech

Status: Public

Valuation: $1 billion

Cellectis is scheduled to do a formal trial of its engineered immune cells as a leukemia treatment as soon as this year. This field of immune engineering was one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2016, and Cellectis is shaping its early development.

$300 million Though not profitable, the company has over $300 million in cash, enough to last through 2018.

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14 Enlitic

Headquarters: San Francisco, California

Industry: Biotech

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $15 million raised

Enlitic produces deep-learning software that can analyze x-rays. It’s being tested by radiologists in Australia, which will be key to establishing how well it can help doctors make diagnoses and design treatments. The recent departure of its founder Jeremy Howard, well known in the machine-learning field, seems to pose a challenge for the company, but new leadership asserts that applications of its algorithms will soon expand to the detection of lung cancer and bone fractures.

50 percent Claims its algorithm read chest CT images 50 percent more accurately than experts in its own test.

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15 Facebook

Headquarters: Menlo Park, California

Industry: Internet & Digital Media

Status: Public

Valuation: $345 billion

Facebook continues to develop its mobile advertising business and refine its mobile apps, but the Oculus Rift is its most exciting technology right now. Following years of anticipation, the virtual-reality headset was released in late March.

$599 Rift sells for $599.

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16 SpaceX

Headquarters: Hawthorne, California

Industry: Transportation

Status: Private

Valuation: $12 billion

If spaceflight were more affordable, more missions could be flown, more scientific discoveries could be made, and new business opportunities could open up. SpaceX has figured out the first step toward driving down costs by landing its rocket boosters on ships after sending them into space. Retrieving rockets makes it possible to reuse them. SpaceX plans to eventually schedule launches every few weeks.

Four Number of times SpaceX attempted to land a rocket on a barge before succeeding.

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17 Toyota

Headquarters: Toyota City, Japan

Industry: Transportation

Status: Public

Valuation: $152 billion

The Toyota Research Institute will study the future of mobility, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Other recent forward-looking moves include the launch of Mirai, a hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicle for the mass market. Mirai has a range of over 300 miles and emits only water vapor. Toyota is now working on developing a network of affordable hydrogen fuel stations.

Leader Roboticist Gill Pratt is CEO of the Toyota Research Institute.

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18 Airware

Headquarters: San Francisco, California

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $70 million raised

Airware is already one of the biggest drone startups, having raised more than $70 million in venture funding, and it is poised to become much bigger. Rather than actually making drones, it provides a control system for any type of drone.

Leader Airware’s founder and CEO also leads an investment fund that supports businesses creating technologies for commercial drones.

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19 IDE Technologies

Headquarters: Kadima, Israel

Industry: Energy

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available (owned in equal parts by publicly traded Delek Group and Israel Chemical)

Its large-scale desalination process is finding more customers. In the U.S. IDE won the job of reactivating a mothballed plant in Santa Barbara, California, and its prospects look strong as long as extracting salt from water to make it potable continues to be economical. Demand will certainly be there: worldwide, some 700 million people don’t have access to enough clean water, and that number is expected to explode to 1.8 billion by 2025.

26 percent By October IDE will be producing 26 percent of Santa Barbara’s water.

20 Tencent

Headquarters: Shenzhen, China

Industry: Transportation

Status: Public

Valuation: $193 billion

Tencent is Asia’s largest Internet company, with a well-used Web portal and a messaging app, WeChat, that is China’s largest. The company recently branched into the enterprise market by launching a business-focused version of WeChat that facilitates communication (messages, phone calls, e-mails) between colleagues, as well as employee expense reports and other record-keeping. Since Tencent derives most of its revenue from online and smartphone games, it has also been investing in mobile-games companies, including the U.S. firms Glu Mobile, and Pocket Gems. It recently bought Riot Games, which makes the hit League of Legends.

78 percent Tencent’s largest business segment, mostly games, accounts for 78 percent of its revenue.

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21 Didi Chuxing

Headquarters: Beijing, China

Industry: Transportation

Status: Private

Valuation: Reported Valuation: $28 billion

Chinese roads are jammed, and a rise in car ownership has led to a jump in people interested in part-time driving work, but competition with Uber has been fierce. Uber and Didi are battling for market share by paying drivers subsidies to pick up rides. Didi claims its drivers complete 14 million rides a day to Uber’s one million. The company’s ambitions don’t end at China’s borders. It has partnerships in India and Southeast Asia, including stakes in Lyft and Indian ride-share app Ola.

14 million Number of rides its drivers complete a day.

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22 Oxford Nanopore

Headquarters: Oxford, United Kingdom

Industry: Biotech

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $355 million raised

Its sequencer is small and portable—greatly expanding its applications and market—because it analyzes DNA by drawing the molecules through tiny, delicate pores. The platform, which went on sale in 2015 and is enough of a threat to competitor Illumina to draw a lawsuit, can analyze DNA, RNA, proteins, and other types of molecules. Potential applications include scientific research, personalized medicine, food safety, crop science, and security and defense. It will soon be tested in space.

Intellectual property Illumina, once an investor, is now suing the company for patent infringement.

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23 24M

Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Industry: Energy

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $50 million raised

Lithium-ion batteries power everything from smartphones and tablets to electric cars and buses. They are expensive, however, and cumbersome to manufacture. Startup 24M developed a new design and manufacturing process that will cut costs. The battery Industry: is striving to produce batteries that cost $100 per kilowatt-hour or less, and 24M says its batteries will cross that threshold sooner than competitors—by 2020.

50 percent The company claims it can reduce the cost of lithium-ion batteries by 50 percent.

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24 Alibaba

Headquarters: Hangzhou, China

Industry: Internet & Digital Media

Status: Public

Valuation: $192 billion

Alibaba, which runs an eBay-like store, a popular virtual mall, and other e-commerce services, is now the world’s largest online marketplace as measured by annual gross merchandise volume. The growth of mobile and video ads also favors Alibaba, which already dominates the Chinese mobile-ad market and recently acquired Youku Tudou, China’s largest online video service. Beyond China, Alibaba has become a backer of other technology companies. In the past year, it invested in Groupon, Magic Leap, and Snapchat in the U.S., as well as the Indian payments and commerce business Paytm and Singapore’s national postal and logistics company, SingPost.

$485 billion Gross value of merchandise sold through Alibaba in its last fiscal year.

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25 Bristol-Myers Squibb

Headquarters: New York City, New York

Industry: Biotech

Status: Public

Valuation: $119 billion

Leads in cancer immunotherapy, working on “checkpoint inhibitors" for numerous forms of cancer. Opdivo, one of two inhibitors the company markets, works by allowing immune-system T cells to attack cancer. It’s approved for skin, lung, and kidney cancer, and when successful, the treatments appear to have enabled patients’ immune systems to eradicate their tumors. It is expensive, however, and that has caused issues with European regulators.

Five years One-third of patients with advanced melanoma survived for five years in a study of Opdivo.

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26 Microsoft

Headquarters: Redmond, Washington

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Public

Valuation: $405 billion

When we included Microsoft on last year’s list for its HoloLens augmented-reality technology, the system had not yet shipped. Now a preproduction “Developer Edition” is available and Microsoft is starting to use it for augmented-reality experiences. Attempting to switch its focus from desktop software to cloud and mobile services, and having recently announced a mammoth $26 billion purchase of business social network LinkedIn, the company is also pushing forward with innovative research, including some on deep neural networks that it has incorporated into Skype for simultaneous language translation. The research will also be applied to a variety of computer vision tasks.

152 A Microsoft network that won a global image recognition contest in 2015 used 152 layers of virtual neurons.

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27 Fanuc

Headquarters: Oshino-mura, Japan

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Public

Valuation: $30 billion

Fanuc began as part of Fujitsu and is the world’s largest maker of industrial robots. It recently announced a novel technology that will connect robots to networks so factory owners can download apps to them. In June 2015, Fanuc also partnered with a Japanese machine-learning company to create artificial-intelligence technology that enables its robots to learn skills independently.

Eight Number of hours a Fanuc robot needs to learn a task with 90 percent accuracy.

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28 Sonnen

Headquarters: Wildpoldsried, Germany

Industry: Energy

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, more than $20 million raised, including GE Ventures’ recent investment

Its system connects homes with solar panels to lithium batteries in a storage system it calls a virtual power plant, offering consumers electricity that is 25 percent cheaper than power from the grid. The company’s new trading platform gives German homeowners a way to both purchase power and sell excess solar power across the utility grid.

25 percent Electricity on its system is 25 percent cheaper than the electricity on the grid, according to the company.

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29 Improbable

Headquarters: London, United Kingdom

Industry: Computing & Communications

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $22 million raised

The company, which came out of work done originally when the founders were students at the University of Cambridge, is developing an environment for building virtual worlds at a new scale and complexity. With advances in robotics and driverless cars, such simulations have become more important as a testing ground. Improbable’s technology allows large amounts of information to be shared between multiple servers nearly instantaneously, which is appealing to gaming developers looking to allow many players to experience a virtual world together.

Funding Andreessen Horowitz is a major backer.

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30 Movidius

Headquarters: San Mateo, California

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $90 million raised

Movidius makes chips for computer-vision applications, which will be necessary to develop smarter mobile devices and drones. Google’s Tango tablet uses Movidius chips, as does DJI’s Phantom 4 drone. Movidius also recently announced a new chip geared for augmented and virtual reality.

On the radar Drones using Movidius technology can sense obstacles to avoid collisions.

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31 Intrexon

Headquarters: Germantown, Pennsylvania

Industry: Biotech

Status: Public

Valuation: $3 billion

Its Oxitec division’s genetically engineered mosquito, which yields offspring that die quickly, has been released in Grand Cayman and parts of Brazil in an attempt to reduce the spread of Zika and other diseases. In March, the World Health Organization recommended a pilot deployment of Oxitec’s solution. The company has been buying up companies specializing in synthetic biology in a variety of applications, but it has not been transparent about how its technology works, leading to some negative speculation about the company.

$174 million Acquisitions increased sales from $8 million to $174 million in five years.

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32 Carbon

Headquarters: Redwood City, California

Industry: Energy

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $141 million raised

Carbon has developed a new technique based on stereolithography that it says is as much as 100 times faster than rivals’ 3-D printing methods and fast enough to be used in place of injection molding to produce certain parts. Carbon will face competition from HP, which has its own new printing technology based on a different class of materials. But the startup is backed by some high-powered investors, including Google Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Silver Lake Kraftwerk, and its board members include the former CEOs of Ford and DuPont.

$40,000 Use of its 3-D printers costs $40,000 a year.

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33 Bosch

Headquarters: Stuttgart, Germany

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Public

Valuation: $649 billion

Bosch’s vision for an industrial Internet of things starts with manufacturing facilities that are becoming increasingly connected and automated, a way to increase productivity in an era of global competition and relatively high domestic wages. The company estimates that by 2020 technologies like connected assembly lines, predictive maintenance, and machines that can do some self-monitoring will combine to boost company revenue by more than $1 billion while saving a comparable amount in operational expenses.

$80 billion Record revenue generated in 2015.

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34 T2 Biosystems

Headquarters: Lexington, Massachusetts

Industry: Biotech

Status: Public

Valuation: $201 million

T2 Biosystems has begun selling its technology for detecting the pathogenic fungus Candida, an often deadly infection. The test is run in three to five hours, as opposed to two to six days, and today 16 hospitals use it.

35 Number of customers who now use the company’s bench-top diagnostic system.

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35 Editas Medicine

Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Industry: Biotech

Status: Public

Valuation: $1 billion

A pioneer of the controversial and exciting CRISPR gene-editing technology, Editas intends to begin testing a new form of gene repair in humans in 2017. The idea is to use CRISPR to cut out the genetic mutation that causes Leber’s congenital amaurosis, a rare retinal disease that leads to blindness, so the cell can repair itself with a normal version. Though CRISPR technology was invented just a few years ago, it is so precise and cheap to use that it has quickly become a tool in biology laboratories.

$94 million Money raised in its February IPO, and the stock is up 85 percent since then.

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36 Nestlé

Headquarters: Vevey, Switzerland

Industry: Biotech

Status: Public

Valuation: $238 billion

Food giant Nestlé has jumped into microbiome research, working to develop “healthy gut” products for its Health Science division. Among its bets on nutritional therapies, the company has made repeated investments in Seres Therapeutics, most recently investing $120 million in the company to support its efforts to develop medicines aimed at the bacteriological balance in the digestive tract. The first experimental treatments are focused on Clostridium difficile infection and inflammatory bowel disease.

$2 billion At a slow time for its core food business, its nutritional therapies division has reached $2 billion in annual revenue in its first five years, and more strong growth is predicted.

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37 RetroSense Therapeutics

Headquarters: Ann Arbor, Michigan

Industry: Biotech

Status: Private

Valuation: not available, $12 million raised

Its therapy uses optogenetics, a technology that uses a combination of gene therapy and light to precisely control nerves. In its treatment of retinitis pigmentosa, the eye is injected with viruses carrying DNA from light-sensitive algae; this is intended to confer light sensitivity on certain nerve cells in the eye.

$12 million Revenue raised from foundations and private investors as well as the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

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38 Line, subsidiary of Naver

Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan

Industry: Internet & Digital Media

Status: Private

Valuation: expected to be more than $5 billion

Line’s growth has slowed, but it is still a leader among the world’s messaging apps when it comes to making money from its users. The company steadily introduces new features, such as chatbot functionality for corporate marketing campaigns and group calls for up to 200 people. (In comparison, Skype limits group calls to 25 people.) In its home market of Japan, Line offers taxi booking inside its app and will soon provide phone service through a deal with Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo. Its IPO expected later this year could value the company at more than $5 billion.

218 million Number of monthly active users.

39 TransferWise

Headquarters: London, United Kingdom

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Private

Valuation: $1.1 billion

TransferWise matches people who looking to make currency trades around the world, at much lower fees than traditional institutions. It has already captured 5 percent of the U.K.’s money-transfer market and recently expanded to the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Mexico, among other places. Its goal of disrupting multinational banks and Western Union has attracted investments from Andreessen Horowitz and Richard Branson, among others.

$750 million Money TransferWise helps users exchange every month.

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40 Veritas Genetics

Headquarters: Danvers, Massachusetts

Industry: Biotech

Status: Private

Valuation: Not available

By making whole-genome sequencing and interpretation affordable, Veritas gives patients and doctors a fuller picture than what’s possible with common genetic tests, improving their diagnostic value. The company also offers cancer screening tests for $199 to $299.

$1,000 Whole-genome sequencing, including interpretation and counseling, costs under $1,000. The supply is limited to 5,000 customers in 2016.

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41 FireEye

Headquarters: Milpitas, California

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Public

Valuation: $2 billion

The company’s security system can be updated at any time to defend against constantly mutating cyber threats. It also encourages clients to focus on quickly resolving attacks, not just trying to avoid them. FireEye has grown to a significant size in an often fragmented Industry:, and it’s been hired to investigate high-profile cybersecurity failures at JPMorgan Chase, Sony Pictures, and Target.

In the works New products focus on securing public and private clouds and detecting targeted e-mail attacks.

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42 SevenBridges

Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $45 million raised

Its bioinformatics software platform runs one of the world’s largest genomic data sets, the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Genome Atlas. This gives cancer researchers worldwide immediate access to a petabyte of patient data and computational resources to analyze it, facilitating research collaboration. SevenBridges is also storing and analyzing data from the 100,000 genomes collected by the British National Health Service. The company’s long-term vision is to support drug research and the practice of precision medicine customized to each patient.

11,000 Number of patients that have contributed 33 cancer types and subtypes to its Cancer Genomics Cloud.

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43 Slack

Headquarters: San Francisco, California

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Private

Valuation: $4 billion

In the past year, Slack’s number of daily users increased from 750,000 to three million. During that time, the company rolled out voice calls as a beta feature and launched a directory for third-party apps, an $80 million fund to invest in Slack developers, and a toolkit for creating chatbots. It also introduced a “Sign In with Slack” feature that lets business users sign up for apps using their Slack identity credentials. The momentum helped Slack raise $200 million more in funding, for a current total of $540 million, at a Valuation: of $3.8 billion.

Three million Number of daily active Slack users.

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44 Coupang

Headquarters: Seoul, South Korea

Industry: Internet & Digital Media

Status: Private

Valuation: $5 billion

Originally a Groupon clone, Coupang is now widely viewed as the Amazon.com of Korea. Like Amazon, it is betting on same-day delivery as an amenity to lure consumers. It has invested millions in a sophisticated logistics system that spans warehouses, trucks, thousands of delivery people, and proprietary algorithms to link everything together. Coupang is also focused on making it easier and more compelling to buy items via smartphone. The aggressive approach brought in $1 billion in funding from Japan’s SoftBank last year.

$5 billion Coupang’s most recent Valuation:.

45 IBM

Headquarters: Armonk, New York

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Public

Valuation: $142 billion

IBM remains in turnaround mode. It has suffered 16 consecutive quarters of declining sales but continues to invest in cloud computing and analytics. Part of that investment involves buying up companies such as Truven Health Analytics and the Weather Company. The purchases come with huge data sets IBM can use to train its AI system, Watson.

100 Number of clients that have built Watson into a product.

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46 Snapchat

Headquarters: Los Angeles, California

Industry: Internet & Digital Media

Status: Private

Valuation: $20 billion

Snapchat is still experimenting with innovative new content, which was the reason it made this list last year. This year, Snapchat’s most significant moves relate to expanding its advertising business. Advertisers value Snapchat as a way to reach consumers aged 13 to 34, but they have criticized the company for charging high rates without sharing much data about ads’ performance. Snapchat recently addressed these concerns by signing deals that let Viacom sell ads on its behalf and allow Nielsen to supply campaign data to advertisers.

10 billion Number of videos that are seen on the app every day.

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47 Africa Internet Group

Headquarters: Lagos, Nigeria

Industry: Internet & Digital Media

Status: Private

Valuation: $1 billion

Africa Internet Group (AIG) was founded by the German tech incubator Rocket Internet in 2012 and runs an array of e-commerce companies throughout Africa. Its flagship business is the online retailer Jumia, which it says is Africa’s largest e-commerce mall. It also owns the continent’s leading hotel booking portal and classified-ad marketplaces for cars and real estate. Besides Rocket Internet, AIG has funding from Axa, Goldman Sachs, and two large telecommunications companies: MTN Group and Orange. Though it is not yet profitable, investors view AIG as a way to access Africa’s developing online economy

26 Africa Internet Group operates in 26 African countries.

48 LittleBits

Headquarters: New York City, New York

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Private

Valuation: Valuation: not available, $62 million raised

Its mostly open-source building kits are now for sale at Barnes & Noble, and the company has added new executives from Lego and MakerBot.

$299 Basic kits sell for $99 to $299.

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49 Intel

Headquarters: Santa Clara, California

Industry: Computing & Communications

Status: Public

Valuation: $140 billion

Despite its long domination of the PC chip market, Intel has struggled to keep ahead of customer demands, particularly the drive for mobile computing. Now the company is trying to find better footing in new domains such as the cloud and Internet-connected devices, experimenting with reprogrammable processors for deep neural networks, and moving a fundamentally new kind of computer memory to market.

$16.7 billion Money Intel spent to buy Altera, a maker of programmable logic devices.

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50 Monsanto

Headquarters: St. Louis, Missouri

Industry: Biotech

Status: Public

Valuation: $44 billion

Monsanto is using RNA interference to create alternatives to conventional genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Already able to kill bugs by getting them to eat leaves coated with specially designed RNA, the company is now trying to develop sprays that penetrate plant cells to block certain plant genes. Potential applications include ideas like a spray that causes tomatoes to taste better or one that helps plants survive a drought. In May, Bayer made a $62 billion offer for the company, which Monsanto turned down, though management did indicate an openness to discussing further offers.

$1.5 billion Money invested last year in research on new biotech traits, genomics, and more.

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The mission of MIT Technology Review is to equip its audiences with the intelligence to understand a world shaped by technology.

ORIGINAL: Tech Review

June 21, 2016