MIT START-UP, 24M, “REINVENTS” THE LITHIUM-ION BATTERY

New Manufacturing Technique Cuts Cost of Lithium Ion Battery in Half

An MIT start-up called 24M claims it has “reinvented the process” to make lithium-ion batteries and believes the technology could be used to provide batteries for storing renewable energy and electric cars. Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT and co-founder of 24M describes the company’s innovation as “the most significant advancement in lithium-ion technology in more than two decades.” The company has already produced roughly 10,000 batteries at its 32,000 square foot (2,793 sq meters) facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a majority of which are currently being tested by three industrial partners, including an oil company and the Japanese firm IHI Corp.

Prof. Chiang hopes the firm will be able to produce batteries for less than USD$100 per kilowatt-hour of capacity by 2020. By jettisoning 80 percent of the non-energy storing materials, 24M has found a way to increase the electrode to over five times the size of that found in a traditional lithium ion battery. What makes the technology even more attractive is that the new process is less capital intensive and wouldn’t need a gigantic factory like the one Tesla is constructing in Nevada, US to be cost effective.