The U.S. may have fallen behind Asia and Europe in battery manufacturing, but a number of well-funded companies are looking to get the country back in the game with a technology that could supersede today’s lithium-ion chemistries.
Companies including Ionic Materials, QuantumScape, Sila Nanotechnologies, Sion Power and Solid Power are developing all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) that are expected to be safer and more energy-dense than the lithium-ion products used in today’s electric vehicles and battery systems.
“Lithium-ion today, with a metal-oxide cathode and carbon-based anode, is starting to approach its theoretical limits,” said Solid Power CEO Doug Campbell in an interview.
Current lithium-ion technologies might achieve power densities of up to 300 watt-hours per kilogram, Campbell said, but not much more. “Solid-state is a platform that allows things like metallic lithium as an anode,” he said. “That’s perhaps the most direct pathway to significantly increasing the energy.”
ASSBs will not have liquid electrolytes that are susceptible to thermal runaway, so the batteries should be inherently safer. And because today’s lithium-ion products require costly thermal control systems, “a safer battery pack is a lower-cost battery pack,” Campbell said.
That combination of potential upsides is attracting big bucks. Massachusetts-based Ionic Materials has drawn investment from a fund backed by Nissan, Mitsubishi and Renault, in addition to Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy. Daimler has backed Sila Nanotechnologies, based in California’s Bay Area. Samsung and Hyundai have invested in Colorado-based Solid Power.
According to Wood Mackenzie, U.S. investments in ASSB and advanced lithium-ion players amounted to $300 million in 2018, $250 million in 2019 and $200 million so far this year, with the 2020 figure made up by a single cash injection from Volkswagen into QuantumScape.
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