Next-gen battery tech: Reimagining every aspect of batteries

Enlarge (credit: MirageC)

The race is on to generate new technologies to ready the battery industry for the transition toward a future with more renewable energy. In this competitive landscape, it’s hard to say which companies and solutions will come out on top.

Corporations and universities are rushing to develop new manufacturing processes to cut the cost and reduce the environmental impact of building batteries worldwide. They are working to develop new approaches to building both cathodes and anodes—the negatively and positively charged components of batteries—and even using different ions to hold charge. While we can't look at every technology that's in development, we can look at a few to give you a sense of the problems people are trying to solve

Cleaner manufacturing

The California-based company Sylvatex has developed a water-free, efficient process for manufacturing cathode active material (CAM). “This process innovation reduces the total cost of CAM by 25 percent, while using 80 percent less energy and eliminating water use and sodium sulfate waste streams,” said Virginia Klausmeier, CEO and founder of Sylvatex.