Ionic Materials Expands Lab Where It Makes Safer, More Efficient Lithium Batteries From Plastic – Imagine a 1000 miles range EV
Ionic Materials emerged from stealth mode last year, and has built out an enviable list of supporters. They say the company has pioneered a polymer electrolyte that could bring about a revolution in solid-state battery performance and safety. Prototype batteries with Ionic Materials’ solid plastic electrolyte (as opposed to the flammable liquid electrolyte found in most lithium-ion batteries today) promise higher energy densities at low cost, and use less of the rare and troublingly sourced metals such as cobalt that are found in today’s batteries.
Crucially, Ionic Materials’ batteries are also more malleable and durable, and far less prone to battery fires. A video shown on endless loop in the company’s lunchroom and touted more than once at the day’s event was a segment from an episode of PBS’s NOVA that featured Ionic Materials among other entities developing next-generation battery technology. The show’s host, David Pogue, used a pair of kitchen scissors to cut an Ionic Materials prototype battery into, as he joked, a “doily.” He later pierced another similar battery through multiple times with a screwdriver. In both cases, the battery not only did not even warm up (let alone burst into dangerous pyrotechnics as lithium ion batteries infamously do), the cut and pierced rechargeable batteries even continued to power the LED light and the iPad they were each attached to.
“If you can use lithium metal rather than lithium ions, you get five to ten times the energy density,” Pogue said. “That means ten days on a charge instead of one day on a charge, a thousand miles on a charge of your car instead of 200 miles.”
Imagine getting 1000 miles range on your EV on a battery that does not catch fire on impact or damage…
See https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/semiconductors/materials/welcome-to-the-ionyl-age or watch an interview where these batteries are cut with a scissors and continue to work at https://youtu.be/a4McN9OYDwg?t=30m42s
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Ionic Materials Expands Lab Where It Makes Safer, More Efficient Lithium Batteries From Plastic – IEEE Spectrum Boston tech startup launches new facility promising powerful, flame-resistant, solid-state batteries |