AquaLith has its eye on a billion-dollar market alternative: new sorts of battery cell parts that don’t depend on the scarce metals usually utilized in lithium-ion battery packs, that are more and more in demand with the rise of electrical autos.
Based on McKinsey & Firm, revenues alongside the lithium-ion battery worth chain will develop from $85 billion in 2022 to over $400 billion in 2030, with energetic supplies and cell manufacturing presumably having the biggest income swimming pools.
With an unique license from the College of Maryland based mostly on the work of lithium-ion battery researchers Chunsheng Wang and Kang Xu, AquaLith is working to create, within the firm’s phrases, “denser, cheaper and safer” batteries by reworking their main parts: the detrimental anode, the optimistic cathode, and the electrolyte that transfers ions between the 2 electrodes.
Cathodes at present account for about 40% of the price of battery supplies. AquaLith, which is a part of TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Battlefield 200 this yr, replaces the necessity for nickel and cobalt in cathodes with uncooked supplies which are a lot simpler to entry and course of whereas nonetheless offering excessive vitality density. This cobalt-free cathode expertise, which might scale back the price of the cathode by greater than 50%, may attraction to EV makers which are weak to China’s management over battery element provide as geopolitical tensions intensify.
“We have now a excessive vitality density cathode that has a lot less complicated supplies that go into it, supplies which are out there anyplace on the earth,” defined Greg Cooper, founder and CEO at AquaLith.
“Cobalt will not be extensively out there around the globe. One of the best cobalt mines are in Congo, so there’s a provide chain constraint there. Numerous Chinese language corporations management the cobalt mines, so there’s fear in some components of the world about entry to these supplies. We have now a cathode that removes the necessity for these supplies, however nonetheless has very excessive vitality density,” he added.
Then there are anodes. As a substitute of the everyday materials of graphite, AquaLith makes anodes with silicon microparticles, which, in accordance with Cooper, can scale back the price of the anode by greater than 75% whereas enhancing the vitality density by greater than 40%. Its opponents use some type of nanosilicon, which is considerably costlier.
Lastly, the corporate makes an attempt to make batteries safer by changing the natural solvent-based electrolyte with a water-based electrolyte, which is nonflammable.
“Once you begin to have a parking storage stuffed with EVs or a bus depot or cargo ship stuffed with electrical autos, then you must fear so much,” the founder stated.
Traditionally, a battery cell element maker like AquaLith can be promoting to battery makers, however the startup has plans to supply its merchandise to automakers inside the subsequent yr as automakers have gotten battery makers themselves. The concept is to get into their growth cycle early so the automotive producers can begin testing AquaLith’s supplies for integration into future merchandise.
“We’ll start with the automakers within the subsequent yr as a result of they decide the important thing necessities for acceptance into automotive. We can even be approaching different battery makers after initially participating with the automakers,” Cooper stated.
Trying forward, AquaLith plans to lift $5 million in 2023 and increase its complete funding to $10 million subsequent yr and $20 million the yr after.
