Cheaper, lighter, and denser: the trifecta defines a super battery. Nobody has devised an ideal cell fairly but, however one stealthy startup thinks it has discovered a brand new materials that solves a minimum of two of these challenges.
Daqus Power has been quietly working for the previous 4 months, refining a compound often called TAQ that guarantees to be cheaper and lighter than competing battery supplies.
“We have now not seen a metric at which TAQ does poorly in contrast with the incumbents,” Harish Banda, co-founder and CEO of Daqus, instructed TechCrunch. The corporate was spun out of MIT, the place analysis into the fabric was funded partly by means of a partnership with Lamborghini.
There are a number of caveats, which Banda freely gives: The corporate remains to be scaling manufacturing of TAQ, and it has solely simply begun engaged on the kind of cells that would drop into an EV. Plus, many promising battery supplies have died on the trail to commercialization.
However the upside is powerful sufficient that Daqus is rising from stealth with a $6 million seed spherical led by Morningside with participation from unnamed particular person traders.
Daqus’s materials replaces the cathode in a lithium-ion battery. In a typical cell, the cathode is made from nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) or iron-phosphate (higher often called LFP). NMC cells are costlier, however supply higher power density and longer vary in electrical automobiles. LFP cells are cheaper however heavier.
U.S. and European automakers have favored NMC for his or her EVs, however they’ve begun to change to LFP to chop prices. Drawback is, the overwhelming majority of LFP cathode supplies are made in China, making them a nonstarter for U.S.-made EVs that need to qualify for tax credit.
The fabric Daqus is working with, bis-tetraaminobenzoquinone or TAQ for brief, isn’t made utilizing costly vital minerals like nickel or cobalt. As a substitute, it’s made solely of broadly accessible carbon-based compounds.
For step one within the manufacturing course of, the 2 molecules the corporate makes use of are already used to make dyes and fertilizers. “They’re completely dust low-cost,” Banda mentioned, noting that the corporate buys small batches at $1 per kilogram. “So you possibly can solely think about what which means whenever you purchase a ton of it.”
What’s extra, the method used to synthesize a TAQ cathode makes use of vastly much less power. Making the stuff solely requires heating it to 120 levels C, some 700 to 800 levels C decrease than LFP or NMC cathodes, Banda mentioned.
On the manufacturing line, TAQ will be deposited utilizing current gear. However there’s one other alternative to chop prices: current anode manufacturing gear can even work with TAQ. That will permit battery makers to make use of water as a solvent as a substitute of NMP, a poisonous solvent that must be captured and recycled.
Altogether, TAQ’s qualities have left Banda feeling assured that the fabric can undercut the most affordable lithium-ion batteries available on the market. “If any person is saying that LFP batteries are at $50 per kilowatt hour, we might be cheaper than that for positive,” Banda mentioned. “Precisely how a lot must be discovered.”
Daqus has been producing coin cells in its lab house in Massachusetts, and its inside checks have proven TAQ to be sturdy. TAQ-based batteries will be charged and discharged 2,000 occasions and keep a minimum of 80% of its unique capability, they usually’re secure at excessive temperatures. These small batteries additionally cost at a price that, when extrapolated to EVs, would allow six minute quick charging.
If there’s a caveat, it’s that TAQ cathodes take up more room than NMC, although they’re aggressive with LFP. Nonetheless, he factors out that as a result of the fabric is lighter, EVs designed round it may be made lighter and would want fewer batteries total. That would give TAQ-powered EVs sufficient vary to compete with NMC whereas being cheaper and lighter.
Sports activities vehicles would possibly understand the advantages sooner. Weight has been one of many largest penalties of electrification: It’s extremely simple to make an EV that’s lightning fast in a straight line, however making one which handles effectively on a race monitor? That’s confirmed to be tougher. A light-weight, fast-charging battery pack might go a good distance towards making electrical sports activities vehicles really feel particular and all vehicles extra environment friendly.
“Numerous automotive firms on the earth are attempting to make electrical vehicles,” Banda mentioned. “What’s the distinction between a Rolls Royce versus a Tesla? Certain you’ve higher seats, however when it comes to the core of the automotive, it was once the engine. Now, it appears to be the battery.”
