Solid Power awarded $5.6M DOE funding

Seeking to achieve the next echelon of battery, Solid Power announced it has been awarded US$5.6 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to continue developing its ground-breaking solid-state battery technology, which could significantly help lower the price of batteries across the board.

Spun out of a program at the University of Colorado in 2011, Solid Power is a U.S.-based battery developer that specializes in solid-state, sulfide-based electrolyte technology that it hopes to scale in order to deliver these more energy-dense cells into the electric vehicle arena at or near cost parity to current lithium-ion batteries.

You can read more about solid-state batteries and Solid Power at Critical step for Solid Power EV cells in the June 8, 2022 edition of Metal Tech News.

"Replacing costly nickel and cobalt in the cathode with sulfur could lead to a lower cost EV battery with improved energy and fast-charging capabilities," said Solid Power Interim CEO David Jansen.

DOE recently announced US$42 million in funding under its Electric Vehicles for American Low-Carbon Living (EVs4ALL) program for 12 projects to strengthen the domestic supply chain for advanced batteries that power electric vehicles.

This program aims to expand domestic EV adoption by developing batteries that last longer, charge faster, perform efficiently in freezing temperatures and have better overall range retention – areas where solid-state batteries have the potential to shine.

Solid-state electrolyte

If you were to take a battery cell out from the battery pack and break it down, you would find three main sections – the cathode, made up of metal oxides such as nickel, cobalt, manganese; an anode typically made of graphite; and an electrolyte solution.

Metal oxides are a compound formed between metals and oxygen, like rust from iron oxide.

Inside a lithium-ion battery cell, this metal oxide is typically made up of some combination of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, which makes up the cathode side of the battery. The graphite layer on the anode side can be likened to an egg carton that holds lithium ions and electrons until used as electricity.

In between these two areas is an electrolyte solution that works as a barrier for electrons but allows lithium ions to pass through. Simply put, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries complete a circuit with very little loss of energy in a neatly contained package.

While this has worked for most portable electronic needs for the last few decades, it is not exactly ideal to power several thousands of pounds of metal on the highway.

This is where solid-state could change the paradigm.

Essentially, solid-state batteries function much like typical lithium-ion batteries, except with a solid instead of liquid electrolyte.

The electrolyte in Solid Power's solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries is a ceramic designed to make batteries lighter, faster to charge, and ideally cheaper.

Despite the ease of explanation, solidifying the electrolyte has proven challenging for researchers in the energy field long before the mad rush toward electrification.

The primary issue is that a solid-state anode, commonly used in all-solid-state batteries, can grow what is known as dendrites, or crystalline growths that can penetrate through the insulating layer in a battery cell. These pesky growths can short out the battery, which reduces the battery's lifespan and can even potentially cause a fire.

Finding a way to eliminate the growth of dendrites has been a primary goal of researchers looking to increase the capacity and safety of the EV battery of choice.

Aside from chemistry issues, solid-state batteries also suffer from two other drawbacks – they do not last as long and are more expensive to manufacture.

Yet, Solid Power has been endeavoring to solve all these issues, and this latest funding will push the company that has garnered the attention of Ford, BMW, and Hyundai into upscaling this future battery technology.

"I'd like to thank the Solid Power development team for their outstanding work and the DOE for their continued confidence in our company's value proposition," said Jansen.