Graphene batteries: Introduction and Market News - Page 17

CPI and Thomas Swan have teamed up with Johnson Matthey (JM), a company focused on sustainable technologies, to explore how to best optimize battery technology using graphene and CNTs.

The ICE-Batt project receives funding support from the Faraday Battery Challenge, managed by Innovate UK the UK’s innovation agency to enable the investigation of how innovative carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) can improve battery performance. In addition, the project will explore how to improve the green credentials of battery processing.

This is a sponsored post by The Graphex Group

The Graphex Group Ltd (GRFXY listed on OTCQX), a leading developer of graphene products and technologies and a manufacturer of spherical graphite and graphene technology for the renewable energy sector, has set up an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, Heilongjiang Province Graphex New Material Technology Company Limited (HLJ Province Graphex) at Qitaihe City of the Heilongjiang Province of China.

Graphex's manufacturing facility for spherical graphite is strategically located in Heilongjiang Province, which is rich in high-quality natural graphite reserves. Once HLJ Province Graphex’s new production facility is fully online, the company expects to increase annual production by 30,000 tons to a total of 40,000 tons.

Directa Plus recently updated that NexTech Batteries, with which Directa established a partnership for developing next-generation batteries, has established an Italian subsidiary to explore the feasibility of producing cathode active materials in Italy, where Directa Plus' graphene technology will be an important component.

NexTech's subsidiary, called NexTech Italia SpA, will look at producing these materials using Directa Plus' graphene nanoplatelets for the manufacture of lithium-sulphur batteries throughout Europe, "in order to accelerate the technology's commercialization".

Australian battery casing company, Vaulta, has announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Braille, Grafoid and Focus Graphite.

Vaulta signed the MOU to pair its innovative graphene-based cell casing technology with three Canadian companies focused on battery energy solutions and the development of creative applications for graphene. Vaulta will work with Braille Energy Systems Inc. (BESI), Focus Graphite Inc. and Grafoid Inc. to conduct market analysis to identify new sectors of interest and co-developed projects.

Last month, Australia-based Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG) announced a research agreement with the University of Queensland’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) for the development of graphene aluminum-ion batteries. Now, GMG has shared the initial performance data when tested in coin cells for the patent-pending surface perforation of graphene in aluminium-ion batteries developed by the Company and the University of Queensland (UQ). Currently, GMG Graphene is producing coin cell prototypes for customer testing in Q4 2021.

Under the recently announced agreement, GMG will manufacture commercial battery prototypes for watches, phones, laptops, electric vehicles and grid storage with technology developed at UQ. GMG has also signed a license agreement with Uniquest, the University of Queensland commercialization company, which provides GMG an exclusive license of the technology for battery cathodes.

The Graphene Flagship's new Graphene Enabled High-Energy Batteries for Automotive Applications (GrEEnBat) Spearhead project will aim to improve battery technology for electric vehicles.

The output of the strategic three-year project will be an automotive battery module prototype that is composed of 60 to 90 battery electric vehicle (BEV) cells. The core of innovation will be the negative electrode of the cell, composed of a silicon-graphene composite developed during earlier Graphene Flagship research projects.

Anaphite, a UK-based company that was founded to explore ways to incorporate graphene into Li-ion batteries to improve battery life and charging times, has raised about £1.2 million (over USD$1,665,000) from investors in a new funding round.

The funding round was led by Zero Carbon Capital, which is investing £300,000. Zero Carbon Capital backs UK-based hard-science start-ups on a mission to address the toughest problems of climate change.

University of Cambridge researchers have designed a lithium-ion battery that can be directly charged in sunlight. This was done in an effort to improve the general process of connecting solar panels to batteries to store energy when the sun is shining.

The idea is to simplify how solar energy is harvested and stored, says Michael De Volder, a mechanical engineer at the University of Cambridge who led the work. If the team can improve the efficiency and lifetime of the hybrid device, its cost will likely be lower than combining solar cells and batteries. For the price of a battery, you get both functionalities, he says.

Battery materials startup Volexion has secured $1.1 million in funding as it moves toward commercialization of its graphene coating for lithium-ion cathodes. The U.S-based company aims to increase its output to several kilogram batch capacity after the funding as it works towards its goal of being commercially ready by 2024.

The closing of the first tranche of its $2.2 million seed financing was led by leading climate tech venture capital firms Clean Energy Ventures and Energy Foundry.