Can Europe recharge its battery industry?

Europe has taken some big swings in the battery industry in recent years and has made a couple of high-profile misses.

Both Sweden's Northvolt , external and Norway's Morrow , external filed for bankruptcy and there are fears in Europe that the continent has missed another technology shift.

With more transport and industry switching from fossil fuels to electricity, batteries are likely to be a growth business.

But the length of time required to bring new products to market, coupled with brutal competition, especially from China, means taking a substantial risk.

Could the answer lie at an almost unimaginably small scale? An increasing number of investors and researchers think so.

A single nanometre is one-billionth of a metre, but it's at that level that some of the most consequential work is being done.

"If you can make this work, it touches so many industries [but] it's a risky business," says Christian Rood, chief executive of Dutch tech firm LeydenJar.

Named after a 18th century precursor to electric cells, LeydenJar uses a technique known as plasma deposition to make a lighter, more efficient anode – an essential component of all batteries.