Lithium Battery Start-Ups

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries, developed for powering consumer electronics, are being reconfigured for use in electric vehicles, and for backing-up home solar installations. The adoption of batteries in large-scale applications will accelerate if some of the key limitations of current lithium-ion technology can be addressed: cost, energy density, cycle-life, and safety. In spite of these limitations, the growth of lithium-ion battery industry is noteworthy. Tesla, a relatively small car company in California, is gearing up to build a factory that will produce 50% of lithium batteries worldwide. Today virtually every major car company has a stake in the electric car arena. An important milestone for improving lithium batteries is the quest to replace the graphite anode by lithium metal. In 2007, Hany Eitouni and Mohit Singh, and I founded a company called Seeo to commercialize all-solid batteries with a lithium metal anode. It was based on stabilizing the lithium anode using a block copolymer electrolyte developed by Singh and Eitouni when they were students in my lab. In 2007, enabling the lithium metal anode was not high on the priority list of major battery manufacturers. It was thus difficult to engage in meaningful partnerships with them. The situation is different today. While difficulties surrounding the lithium metal anode are widely recognized, enabling it represents the most credible path for increasing the specific energy of lithium batteries substantially beyond that of lithium-ion chemistry. Cells with specific energies comparable to gasoline such as lithium-sulfur and lithium-air are all dependent on a stable lithium metal anode. A new battery venture called Blue Current that I started with my co-inventor, Joe DeSimone and Alex Teran in 2014 hopes to take all-solid batteries to the next level. I will use my start-up experience to indicate what I think the roles of government labs, universities, and small businesses are in the emerging clean energy landscape. Deployment of clean energy on scale remains a daunting challenge; partnerships involving different segments of society are our best hope for addressing this challenge.