Bosch’s acquisition of Seeo Inc. is followed within seven weeks by news that an innovator in another area has acquired a battery developer. Electric-vehiclenews.com announced that “Dyson, the U.K. company famous for its bagless vacuum cleaners, has acquired Michigan-based solid-state battery startup Sakti3 for $90 million and announced plans to build an important $1 billion battery factory to mass produce the next generation battery technology.” The report noted this was the second recent purchase of a promising start-up company by a larger, richer firm. Bosch acquired Seeo Inc. to benefit from its solid-state technology, which like most solid-state batteries would, among other benefits, reduce or eliminate fire hazards – something brought to the fore by recent FAA rulings on shipping of lithium batteries. Sakti3 has announced a solid-state cell with 400 Watt-hours per kilogram energy density, roughly twice that of most competitors, including Tesla’s – reputed to be around 230 Wh/kg. Although Sakti3 founder and CEO Ann Marie Sastry joins Dyson as …
Lighter, More Powerful, Cheaper. Can J-CESR Bring Us Better Batteries?
$70,000 is a sizable base price for a car. That sum for the simplest of Tesla S sedans makes a bigger than average debt load for most of us, probably more than most can responsibly assume. Even the much anticipated model “E” at half that price is more stunning than the average sticker shock these days. What if, by some act of art or science, that $70,000 could be slashed to $14,000 for an electric vehicle that could travel 265 miles on a charge? That tall order is the order of the day for the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, started two years ago under Dr. Steven Chu, who was then U. S. Secretary of Energy. He and his “teams” were charged with establishing the cooperative enterprise at “Argonne National Laboratory with a budget of $120 million over five years to create a battery five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today’s norms – all within five …
Sakti 3 Announces Significant Battery Breakthrough
Dr. Ann Marie Sastry, CEO of Sakti3, Inc. of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been quietly working on a high-energy-density battery that would use mass production platforms with “fully scalable equipment” that would take us to the next level of development. Sakti announced this week that its new battery can store over 1,100 Watt hours per liter (Wh/l) in volumetric energy density, about two to four times that for conventional cells. Scientific American reports 1,143 Wh/l. According to Sakti’s release, “This translates to more than double the usage time in a wearable device like a smartwatch, from 3.5 hours to more than 9 hours. It also translates to almost double the range in an EV like the Tesla Model S, from 265 miles to 480 miles.” Besides the performance improvement, Sakti claims to be able to produce the new, solid-state battery that would rely on a “full scale plant layout to avoid any high cost materials, equipment or processes.” Professor Wei …
2X Solid State Batteries?
Applied Materials, located in Sunnyvale, California, designs and makes equipment used in the manufacture of computer chips and other miniature electronic devices. Your editor worked there on assignment from his engineering firm for six months 15 years ago, documenting and verifying the equipment and control systems for their newest facility. Even then, miniature was wild understatement, with the company crafting machinery that could produce 0.18 µm lines in silicon chips. In the last two decades, line widths have shrunk to 0.03 µm, and the number of elements on chips has increased proportionally. This makes nano manufacturing a highly precise endeavor, and one which seems to defy credulity with lower costs for the ever-increasing number of chips being made. It’s this type of manufacturing expertise which makes possible the electronic life we lead today and one that relies increasingly on energy storage technology. The very things that make solid state computing possible could produce solid state batteries – an advantageous storage …
I’ll Take Manhattan
While much of battery research goes into crafting the ultimate anode, cathode or electrolyte, there seem to be few efforts, at least to outside observers, of integrated approaches to making a better total battery. That may change soon, with the Department of Energy announcing formation of a new Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (J-CESR, or J-Caesar). Dr. Steven Chu, U. S. Secretary of Energy, has established the Center at Argonne National Laboratory with a budget of $120 million over five years to create a battery five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today’s norms – all within five years. For those of us who’ve grown wary of those “breakthough” announcements that almost always include the line, “researchers say the new product could become a commercial reality in the next five to 20 years,” this may seem too hopeful. Secretary Chu’s announcement included several factors that may alleviate this wariness. The Department is putting up the money, …