If you stop and think about it for a second, advances in lithium batteries have powered a fair number of emerging technologies in this decade. Electric cars, drones, smartphones, these are all becoming prolific because of improvements in lithium battery technologies. When it comes to portable batteries, short of some entirely new battery technology being developed, it looks like we’re going to be stuck with lithium batteries for a while. Here’s where all these batteries will be coming from:
It’s been a while since we mentioned anything about battery technology or power cells and the companies looking to advance these technologies. Batteries or power cell systems are generally made up of the anode, the cathode, and the electrolyte. The most popular material for the anode and the cathode is lithium, mainly because it is a safer alternative than most materials for manufacturing batteries. When looking to improve upon the lithium battery, there are two primary areas for improvement:
- Cycles need to be improved – Lithium batteries typically have a charge/discharge life cycle of 300 to 500 before they “die”.
- Density needs to be increased – The more energy you can store in a battery, the smaller and lighter you can make the appliance that carries the battery.
Since we first started writing about lithium battery technology startups, there have been a few notable acquisitions. Vacuum maker Dyson acquired Sakti3 which was working on solid state batteries. If you recall, solid state batteries eliminate the need for an electrolyte which means they are safer and cheaper to manufacture. Another battery technology startup called Seeo was developing solid state batteries based on a nano-structured polymer electrolyte. Seeo was acquired by Bosch in August of 2015. Both of these acquisitions show promising possible exits for other lithium battery technology startups. We had some of our on-staff PHDs try and put together a list of lithium battery technology startups to watch and here’s what they found.
China is expected to become a major player in lithium battery production by 2020 with a capacity increase of +521% between 2016 and 2020. Clearly Boston Power sees a future there that avoids having to compete directly with the Tesla Gigafactory.
