Innolith battery said to achieve 4 x energy density
Swiss energy technology company Innolith says they have developed the world’s first lithium-based rechargeable battery with an energy density of 1000 Wh/kg, which would give electric cars a range of more than 1000 km on a single charge. The battery apparently uses less expensive materials and is non-flammable.
It would appear that Innolith has managed three significant breakthroughs here: the battery’s non-flammable nature, its high-density and the reduction of reliance on expensive materials.
Making the battery safer is the use of a non-flammable inorganic electrolyte. Also, the battery’s high energy density has been able to make a big jump because of chemistry, that is said to have overcome the poor performance of traditional intercalation-based materials.
Innolith Chairman, Alan Greenshields explained that the breakthrough came through years of research into all aspects of inorganic electrolytes. He explained that “The absence of organic materials, crucial for the stability of Innolith’s high power product, removes the key source of safety risk and chemical instability of high energy batteries.”
Innolith has already proven the breakthrough character of non-flammable, inorganic rechargeable batteries with its first product, a Grid-Scale Power Battery. This was launched in late 2018 with inorganic grid-scale lithium-ion battery technology capable of many thousands of more cycles at a third of the cost of standard lithium batteries. The technology is currently in use in the U.S. providing fast frequency regulation services.
Innolith intends to launch its new product called the ‘Energy Battery’, on the market by means pilot production at the company’s facilities in Germany. This will be followed by licensing partnerships with battery and automobile manufacturers. The development and marketing of the new cell are expected to take between three and five years, according to Innolith.
However, there have been other trying to deliver the battery breakthrough, but none has produced so far. Moreover, Innolith is keeping much of the chemical detail a secret – understandable in a competitive market perhaps but making it impossible to falsify their claims at the same time. So. delivery will be everything as always.
Additional reporting by Nora Manthey.
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