Zeta Energy

Last updated
Zeta Energy Corporation
Type Private Company
Industry Electric batteries
Founded2014;9 years ago (2014) at Rice University
Founders
  • Charles Maslin
Headquarters Houston, Texas, U.S.
Key people
Tom Pilette (CEO)
Number of employees
32 (2023)
Websitezetaenergy.com

Zeta Energy is a Houston, Texas-based company that develops lithium-sulfur batteries based on two proprietary technologies: a sulfurized carbon cathode and a 3D-structured metallic lithium anode. This combination yields a battery with high energy density and lower cost than traditional lithium-ion batteries, while also offering comparable cyclability and better safety. [1] The elimination of metals like cobalt, manganese and nickel also dramatically simplifies the supply chain for battery manufacturing. [2]

Contents

History

Zeta Energy was founded in 2014 by Charles Maslin, an entrepreneur and investor with an avid interest in technology. Maslin funded and licensed research on lithium-metal batteries being conducted at by a group led by world-renowned chemist and nanotechnologist Dr. James Tour at Rice University. [3]

Technology

The potential for a Lithium-sulfur battery had long been of interest in the scientific community because sulfur is cheap and abundant and offers a theoretical energy capacity that is up to 500 percent higher than conventional lithium-ion battery materials. However, several challenges had limited their development. First, sulfur cathodes suffered from a polysulfide shuttle effect that resulted in “leakage” of active material, leading to degradation of the battery. [4] Sulfur also expanded as it took on lithium ions, creating instability in the battery's structure. As a result of these effects, lithium sulfur batteries had a history of poor “cyclability,” meaning that they could not be recharged very many times, making them commercially nonviable for most applications. [5]

After considerable experimentation, the Zeta Energy team created a novel method of polymerizing sulfur that solved these problems. Zeta's sulfurized cathode contains no elemental sulfur and yields no polysulfides. As Chief Science Officer Rodrigo Salvatierra notes, “Sulfur cathodes have existed since the 1960s, but they didn’t perform well in applications that require many recharging cycles. We designed a special class of sulfurized carbon that enables us to use a high quantity of sulfur, is polysulfide free, and works across a broad range of electrolytes.” [6]

The combination of a dendrite-free, high-density anode, and a sulfur cathode with excellent “cyclability” was termed “The Holy Grail in battery technology" by Forbes Magazine, [7] and attracted considerable attention in the automotive industry as a technology that could significantly improve electric vehicles. [8] Sandy Munro, who gained fame as a tear-down analyst of electric vehicles featured the technology on his "Munro Live" show, [9] and the segment rapidly accrued hundreds of thousands of views and comments. Notably, Zeta's Lithium-sulfur battery also does not use cobalt, nickel or manganese, greatly simplifying the supply chain for batteries, [10] reducing cost and volatility of materials, and avoiding the ethical issues associated with cobalt (cobalt is primarily mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that is notorious for using child labor in cobalt mines). [11]

Awards

Zeta Energy's achievements earned it a spot on the World Materials Forum's “Top Ten Technologies” list in 2021, the “Coup de Couer Scale-Up Award” from World Materials Forum in 2022, [12] and $4 million in funding from the United States Department of Energy ARPA-E's EVs4ALL program in 2023. [13] [14] [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lithium-ion battery</span> Rechargeable battery type

A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. In comparison with other rechargeable batteries, Li-ion batteries are characterized by a higher specific energy, higher energy density, higher energy efficiency, longer cycle life and longer calendar life. Also noteworthy is a dramatic improvement in lithium-ion battery properties after their market introduction in 1991: within the next 30 years their volumetric energy density increased threefold, while their cost dropped tenfold.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rechargeable battery</span> Type of electrical battery

A rechargeable battery, storage battery, or secondary cell, is a type of electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to a disposable or primary battery, which is supplied fully charged and discarded after use. It is composed of one or more electrochemical cells. The term "accumulator" is used as it accumulates and stores energy through a reversible electrochemical reaction. Rechargeable batteries are produced in many different shapes and sizes, ranging from button cells to megawatt systems connected to stabilize an electrical distribution network. Several different combinations of electrode materials and electrolytes are used, including lead–acid, zinc–air, nickel–cadmium (NiCd), nickel–metal hydride (NiMH), lithium-ion (Li-ion), lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), and lithium-ion polymer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sodium–sulfur battery</span> Type of molten-salt battery

A sodium–sulfur (NaS) battery is a type of molten-salt battery that uses liquid sodium and liquid sulfur electrodes. This type of battery has a similar energy density to lithium-ion batteries, and is fabricated from inexpensive and non-toxic materials. However, due to the high operating temperature required, as well as the highly corrosive and reactive nature of sodium and sodium polysulfides, these batteries are primarily suited for stationary energy storage applications, rather than for use in vehicles. Molten Na-S batteries are scalable in size: there is a 1 MW microgrid support system on Catalina Island CA (USA) and a 50 MW/300 MWh system in Fukuoka, Kyusyu, (Japan).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lithium iron phosphate battery</span> Type of rechargeable battery

The lithium iron phosphate battery or LFP battery is a type of lithium-ion battery using lithium iron phosphate as the cathode material, and a graphitic carbon electrode with a metallic backing as the anode. Because of their lower cost, high safety, low toxicity, long cycle life and other factors, LFP batteries are finding a number of roles in vehicle use, utility-scale stationary applications, and backup power. LFP batteries are cobalt-free. As of September 2022, LFP type battery market share for EVs reached 31%, and of that, 68% was from Tesla and Chinese EV maker BYD production alone. Chinese manufacturers currently hold a near monopoly of LFP battery type production. With patents having started to expire in 2022 and the increased demand for cheaper EV batteries, LFP type production is expected to rise further and surpass lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NMC) type batteries in 2028.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nanobatteries</span> Type of battery

Nanobatteries are fabricated batteries employing technology at the nanoscale, particles that measure less than 100 nanometers or 10−7 meters. These batteries may be nano in size or may use nanotechnology in a macro scale battery. Nanoscale batteries can be combined to function as a macrobattery such as within a nanopore battery.

Nanodot can refer to several technologies which use nanometer-scale localized structures. Nanodots generally exploit properties of quantum dots to localize magnetic or electrical fields at very small scales. Applications for nanodots could include high-density information storage, energy storage, and light-emitting devices.

The polysulfide–bromine battery, is a type of rechargeable electric battery, which stores electric energy in liquids, such as water-based solutions of two salts: sodium bromide and sodium polysulfide. It is an example and type of redox (reduction–oxidation) flow battery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lithium-ion capacitor</span> Hybrid type of capacitor

A lithium-ion capacitor is a hybrid type of capacitor classified as a type of supercapacitor. It is called a hybrid because the anode is the same as those used in lithium-ion batteries and the cathode is the same as those used in supercapacitors. Activated carbon is typically used as the cathode. The anode of the LIC consists of carbon material which is often pre-doped with lithium ions. This pre-doping process lowers the potential of the anode and allows a relatively high output voltage compared to other supercapacitors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lithium–sulfur battery</span> Type of rechargeable battery

The lithium–sulfur battery is a type of rechargeable battery. It is notable for its high specific energy. The low atomic weight of lithium and moderate atomic weight of sulfur means that Li–S batteries are relatively light. They were used on the longest and highest-altitude unmanned solar-powered aeroplane flight by Zephyr 6 in August 2008.

The lithium–air battery (Li–air) is a metal–air electrochemical cell or battery chemistry that uses oxidation of lithium at the anode and reduction of oxygen at the cathode to induce a current flow.

A potassium-ion battery or K-ion battery is a type of battery and analogue to lithium-ion batteries, using potassium ions for charge transfer instead of lithium ions. It was invented by the Iranian/American chemist Ali Eftekhari in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sodium-ion battery</span> Type of rechargeable battery

Sodium-ion batteries (NIBs or SIBs) are several types of rechargeable batteries, which use sodium ions (Na+) as its charge carriers. In some cases, its working principle and cell construction are similar to those of lithium-ion battery (LIB) types, but it replaces lithium with sodium as the cathode material. Sodium belongs to the same group in the periodic table as lithium and thus has similar chemical properties. In other cases (such as aqueous Na-ion batteries) they are quite different from Li-ion batteries.

Aluminium-ion batteries are a class of rechargeable battery in which aluminium ions serve as charge carriers. Aluminium can exchange three electrons per ion. This means that insertion of one Al3+ is equivalent to three Li+ ions. Thus, since the ionic radii of Al3+ (0.54 Å) and Li+ (0.76 Å) are similar, significantly higher numbers of electrons and Al3+ ions can be accepted by cathodes with little damage. Al has 50 times (23.5 megawatt-hours m-3) the energy density of Li and is even higher than coal.

A lithium-ion flow battery is a flow battery that uses a form of lightweight lithium as its charge carrier. The flow battery stores energy separately from its system for discharging. The amount of energy it can store is determined by tank size; its power density is determined by the size of the reaction chamber.

Research in lithium-ion batteries has produced many proposed refinements of lithium-ion batteries. Areas of research interest have focused on improving energy density, safety, rate capability, cycle durability, flexibility, and cost.

A magnesium sulfur battery is a rechargeable battery that uses magnesium ion as its charge carrier, magnesium metal as anode and sulfur as cathode. To increase the electronic conductivity of cathode, sulfur is usually mixed with carbon to form a cathode composite. Magnesium sulfur battery is an emerging energy storage technology and now is still in the stage of research. It is of great interest since in theory the Mg/S chemistry can provide 1722 Wh/kg energy density with a voltage at ~1.7 V.

Magnesium batteries are batteries that utilize magnesium cations as the active charge transporting agents in solution and often as the elemental anode of an electrochemical cell. Both non-rechargeable primary cell and rechargeable secondary cell chemistries have been investigated. Magnesium primary cell batteries have been commercialised and have found use as reserve and general use batteries.

The lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxides (abbreviated as Li-NCA, LNCA, or NCA) are a group of mixed metal oxides. Some of them are important due to their application in lithium ion batteries. NCAs are used as active material in the positive electrode (which is the cathode when the battery is discharged). NCAs are composed of the cations of the chemical elements lithium, nickel, cobalt and aluminium. The compounds of this class have a general formula LiNixCoyAlzO2 with x + y + z = 1. In case of the NCA comprising batteries currently available on the market, which are also used in electric cars and electric appliances, x ≈ 0,8, and the voltage of those batteries is between 3.6 V and 4.0 V, at a nominal voltage of 3.6 V or 3.7 V. A version of the oxides currently in use in 2019 is LiNi0,84Co0,12Al0,04O2.

A solid-state silicon battery or silicon-anode all-solid-state battery is a type of rechargeable lithium-ion battery consisting of a solid electrolyte, solid cathode, and silicon-based solid anode.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the lithium-ion battery</span> Overview of the events of the development of lithium-ion battery

This is a history of the lithium-ion battery.

References

  1. ↑ Hill, Charles WL; Schilling, Melissa A (2024). Strategic Management:Theory and Cases (14th ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Cengage. pp. C4.1-C4.4. ISBN   9780357716724.
  2. ↑ Schilling, Melissa (June 9, 2023). "Innovating a Better, Cleaner and Cheaper Battery". Energies Magazine (Summer).
  3. ↑ Schilling, Melissa (June 9, 2023). "Innovating a Better, Cleaner and Cheaper Battery". Energies Magazine (Summer).
  4. ↑ Critchley, Liam. "Why lithium-sulfur batteries are taking so long to be used commercially" . Retrieved June 28, 2023.
  5. ↑ Zhu, Kunlei (2019). "How far away are lithium-sulfur batteries from commercialization?". Frontiers in Energy Research. 7. doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2019.00123 .
  6. ↑ Schilling, Melissa (June 9, 2023). "Innovating a Better, Cleaner and Cheaper Battery". Energies Magazine (Summer).
  7. ↑ Rapier, Robert. "The Holy Grail of Lithium Batteries". Forbes . Retrieved August 9, 2019.
  8. ↑ "CleanTech Talk: Lithium-sulfur battery breakthrough from Zeta Energy?". CleanTechnica. July 14, 2023.
  9. ↑ Munro, Sandy. "Zeta Energy: A Battery Breakthrough?". Youtube.com. Munro Live. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  10. ↑ Walford, Lynn. "Sustainable, High-Performance, Cheaper and Safer - Zeta Energy's Lithium-Sulfur Batteries". Auto Futures. Retrieved July 30, 2023.
  11. ↑ Sanderson, Henry (7 July 2019). "Congo, child labour and your electric car". Financial Times. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
  12. ↑ "022 WMF Start Up & Scale Up Challenges: Prof. Victoire de Margerie announces the Awards". World Materials Forum. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  13. ↑ "Zeta Energy: Enabling Fast Charging Batteries with 3D Lithium Metal Architectures and Sulfurized Carbon Cathodes". ARPA-E. US Department of Energy ARPA-E. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
  14. ↑ Moreno, Mayra (11 January 2023). "Houston startup company gets $4 million for electric vehicle battery technology". ABC13 Eyewitness News. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
  15. ↑ Nair, Jishnu (January 12, 2023). "Houston battery producer Zeta Energy named recipient of Department of Energy grant". The Business Journals. Retrieved November 16, 2023.
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