Lithium News

A startup that spun out of Cambridge University claims a battery breakthrough that can charge an electric car in just six minutes.

It’s something we heard before, but the difference here is that they claim that they can commercialize the new battery as soon as next year.

The startup, Echion Technologies, was founded by Dr. Jean De La Verpilliere while he was studying for his PhD in nanoscience at the University of Cambridge.

De La Verpilliere claims to have created a new powder that replaces graphite inside Li-ion battery cells and improves recharge capacity in an impressive way.

He told Cambridge Independent:

The powders are the central component of a lithium battery. This is a new kind of powder that allows you to recharge in six minutes, not 45 minutes. This includes a car, so your electric car is almost as easy to charge as it is to refuel conventionally.

The startup claims to have a prototype that has been validated, and it secured investments from Newable Private Investing and Cambridge Enterprise.

De La Verpilliere said:

We’re working on methods to make powders that are scaleable and where 1,000 tonnes could be made quite easily in factories. We have a prototype now, and are moving toward commercialization early next year. The tests have to be validated beforehand.

It’s rare that startups can convince battery makers to use their chemistry in their expensive production lines, but Echion claims that its new material can easily be incorporated into existing production.

The company wrote on its website:

Echion Technologies provides a unique platform for battery material and composite manufacture at pilot scales. Our materials then simply ‘drop in’ to existing battery manufacturing infrastructure with no capital cost. This provides a low barrier to market entry and rapid customer access for our battery materials.

Echion Technologies claims to be working with OEM, and they are aiming for production to start in 2020.

Solar cells. Solar panels. Inverters. Steel. Aluminum frames for PV modules. There is practically no part of the solar supply chain that has not been affected by one of the many tariffs that the Trump Administration has imposed on products from around the globe – but mostly from China.

And now, batteries will be included as well. Lithium-ion batteries, to be exact. The code HTSUS 8507.60 is included on a list published yesterday by the U.S. Trade Representative of products from China that will be subject to 10% duties under the latest of several rounds of Section 301 tariffs that President Trump has imposed.

The announcement that clarified the inclusion of lithium-ion batteries also exempted a number of other products based on “health, safety, national security and other factors”, and delayed tariffs on a third group until December 15.

China’s battery sector casts a long shadow over the rest of the world; In 2018 the nation hosted 2/3 of the global manufacturing capacity for the kinds of lithium-ion batteries that are used in electric vehicles and energy storage in the electricity sector.

Unsurprisingly, in June Energy Storage Association (ESA) CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman issued a statement warning that imposition of tariffs on Chinese batteries would have an “immediate and adverse” effect on energy storage deployments:

The proposed tariffs will stymie growth and job creation as energy storage projects already contracted are delayed or canceled. With this, higher costs and uncertainty will create barriers at a time when the demand for improved resilience and clean energy is rising across the nation.

As similar batteries are also used in electric vehicles, there could be an impact on the EV market as well.

U.S. manufacturers not spared

Tariffs should give U.S. battery makers such as Tesla should a competitive advantage versus imported batteries; however according to ESA a previous round of Section 301 tariffs have already been imposed on some lithium, cobalt and graphite inputs which are the main raw materials used in these batteries.

As China represents the majority of the world’s chemical lithium and chemical cobalt and all of its spherical graphite production, these tariffs are doubtless already affecting Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory and the small amount of other U.S. battery manufacturing – including factories such as the one that Akasol has planned near Detroit. 

The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), which has drawn up over Rs 2 lakh crore capex over the next seven years for refinery expansion, modernisation and petrochemical capacity, is also working at an alternative to lithium-ion batteries for Electric Vehicles, chairman Sanjiv Singh said on Wednesday.

“The battery what we see today, probably is not the only answer. We don’t have a single grain of lithium in India. So, if we are looking at EVs in a very big way, we have to look at something that is indigenously available,” Singh said without elaborating on the venture.

IOC is working on a solution, and has a tie-up with a foreign country for the same, he said.

The alternative to lithium-ion could be the aluminium-air batteries, which are much cheaper as well as lighter, said another senior official of the company on the sidelines of a conference. “We are trying aluminium air battery.

Aluminium anode, which doesn’t have to be charged. But, the anode has to be changed periodically and the process is detailed,” said Gurmeet Singh, director (marketing).

Currently, the technology is available with Israel and China. Last year, IOC had signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with Israel’s Phinergy for developing ultra-lightweight metal-air batteries for EVs.

The LoI was for R&D, deployment and manufacture of metal-air batteries for an array of applications.

“We cannot talk about our commercial strategy, but we are in an advanced stage,” Gurmeet Singh said. The potential sites for setting up the facilities could be in metros like Chennai, which has large car manufacturing facilities around.

IOC has also participated in the Expression of Interest floated by the government to set up EV charging stations.

It has already set up 24 EV charging stations; but space is an issue, as fuel retail outlets do not have space to park vehicles for longer periods and most of the sites are expensive, Singh said.

Did you know that batteries often have over 80% of their life left when they’re thrown away? This misunderstanding of the potential battery technology is unsustainable and wasteful. Imagine if your car broke down, you wouldn’t scrap it, you’d try and get the broken parts repaired.

What’s more, batteries can help support the growth of developing regions. Of course, they are an essential part of any green revolution, providing energy security when using intermittent sources of power such as wind or solar. But the opportunity for positive impact is even greater in developing regions, where energy security is directly linked to local development.

In 2016 Aceleron Co-founder Carlton Cummins and I set about finding a solution to reduce battery waste and making energy storage solutions more accessible to people in developing regions.

Reducing battery waste

Traditional lithium-ion batteries are welded or glued together, making individual components difficult to replace. If one part fails, the whole battery stops working and is usually thrown away – often with the majority of their potential left unused.

In response, we developed and patented a battery technology design that enables the batteries to be repaired, upgraded and reused when no longer suitable for their first life, thus reducing battery waste.

Manufactured in Birmingham in the UK, the simple assembly technology facilitates the easy replacement of components, which is coupled with advanced machine learning technology that can tell which components are faulty. This means a battery can function for up to 25 years, just like you could keep a car running for 25 years with appropriate maintenance and servicing.

We are early on in our journey, but we are selling battery packs in the Caribbean, UK and Kenya and we are definitely seeing an increase in global demand.

Supporting developing regions

Early on, we decided that our battery business should not only be a world leader in sustainable battery technology, but also have a positive societal impact, improving the lives of as many people as possible.

One exciting project currently taking place is in Kenya, where we are repurposing ‘dead’ solar lamp batteries into battery packs for a price similar to lead acid batteries. The work involves taking apart old battery packs, comprehensively testing all the components and building repurposed batteries.

Additionally, with financial and business support from the Shell Foundation, a UK charity, and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), we have been testing our batteries directly in solar home systems that fit well with our technology and with the local economy in Kenya.

Both of these projects have been transformational – taking whole towns from darkness to light.

However, the road hasn’t all been smooth and there have been sharp learning curves along the way. Challenges have ranged from employing the best team possible, to meeting regulatory requirements and ensuring we have enough time to start a world-leading hardware company.

…and to the next adventure

Looking forward, the next adventure lies in energy storage as a service (ESaaS). Using ESaaS, the upfront cost of the high-quality lithium-ion battery packs can be reduced significantly so that they can be purchased for just a few dollars a month. This means that energy storage can be brought to even more people in developing regions to maximise the positive impact.

Reducing battery waste and increasing energy storage accessibility will not happen overnight, but with the right support we believe our innovative, circular-economy inspired technology could be the solution the world’s been waiting for.

General Motors is the latest automaker reported to be working on solid-state lithium batteries, thanks to a $2 million grant from Uncle Sam.

The money is part of a larger grant to develop more fuel-efficient powertrains, CNET reported. The company is expected to use the rest of the money to develop a lighter-weight, more efficient engine for medium duty trucks, perhaps to replace the company’s 6.2-liter V-8.

Solid-state lithium batteries replace the flammable liquid organic solvents such as ethylene carbonate as an electrolyte in conventional lithium batteries with a solid, ceramic electrolyte that isn’t flammable. That allows engineers to cram more lithium atoms into the battery to give it more energy without increasing volatility, which could lead to lighter, batteries for electric cars with longer ranges.

So far, complex manufacturing challenges, cost, and power output have held the batteries back.

Other automakers, including Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and startup automaker Fisker are also racing to develop solid state batteries for electric cars.

GM is also working with Honda in a joint venture to develop future electric-car and fuel-cell technologies, including batteries.

John Goodenough, an engineering professor at the University of Texas, who co-invented the modern lithium-ion battery, announced a breakthrough in solid-state lithium batteries in 2017, but with long automotive development lead times, it has not yet seen the light of day.

Not all automakers or battery companies are optimistic about the prospects for solid-state batteries. Panasonic, Tesla’s battery partner, has said it doesn’t expect solid-state lithium batteries to be commercially viable for another 10 years, and Tesla recently bought ultracapacitor producer Maxwell Technologies. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said ultracapacitors have more promise for electric cars than lithium-ion batteries.

Hope has been restored for the rechargeable lithium metal battery – a potential battery powerhouse relegated for decades to the laboratory by its short life expectancy and occasional fiery demise while its rechargeable sibling, the lithium-ion battery, now rakes in more than $30 billion a year.

A team of researchers at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has invented a coating that overcomes some of the battery’s defects, described in a paper published Aug. 26 in Joule.

In laboratory tests, the coating significantly extended the battery’s life. It also dealt with the combustion issue by greatly limiting the tiny needlelike structures – or dendrites – that pierce the separator between the battery’s positive and negative sides. In addition to ruining the battery, dendrites can create a short circuit within the battery’s flammable liquid. Lithium-ion batteries occasionally have the same problem, but dendrites have been a non-starter for lithium metal rechargeable batteries to date.

“We’re addressing the holy grail of lithium metal batteries,” said Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering, who is senior author of the paper along with Yi Cui, professor of materials science and engineering and of photon science at SLAC. Bao added that dendrites had prevented lithium metal batteries from being used in what may be the next generation of electric vehicles.

The promise

Lithium metal batteries can hold at least a third more power per pound as lithium-ion batteries do and are significantly lighter because they use lightweight lithium for the positively charged end rather than heavier graphite. If they were more reliable, these batteries could benefit portable electronics from notebook computers to cell phones, but the real pay dirt, Cui said, would be for cars. The biggest drag on electric vehicles is that their batteries spend about a fourth of their energy carrying themselves around. That gets to the heart of EV range and cost.

“The capacity of conventional lithium-ion batteries has been developed almost as far as it can go,” said Stanford PhD student David Mackanic, co-lead author of the study. “So, it’s crucial to develop new kinds of batteries to fulfill the aggressive energy density requirements of modern electronic devices.”

The team from Stanford and SLAC tested their coating on the positively charged end – called the anode – of a standard lithium metal battery, which is where dendrites typically form. Ultimately, they combined their specially coated anodes with other commercially available components to create a fully operational battery. After 160 cycles, their lithium metal cells still delivered 85 percent of the power that they did in their first cycle. Regular lithium metal cells deliver about 30 percent after that many cycles, rendering them nearly useless even if they don’t explode.

The new coating prevents dendrites from forming by creating a network of molecules that deliver charged lithium ions to the electrode uniformly. It prevents unwanted chemical reactions typical for these batteries and also reduces a chemical buildup on the anode, which quickly devastates the battery’s ability to deliver power.

“Our new coating design makes lithium metal batteries stable and promising for further development,” said the other co-lead author, Stanford PhD student Zhiao Yu.

The group is now refining their coating design to increase capacity retention and testing cells over more cycles.

“While use in electric vehicles may be the ultimate goal,” said Cui, “commercialization would likely start with consumer electronics to demonstrate the battery’s safety first.”