Photo Finish in the Battery Storage Race: Kodak, Ateios Tout RaiCure Speed for Electrodes
With energy storage envisioned as the primary smoothing factor to scale up solar and other intermittent and distributed energy resources for the grid and microgrids, the pace of new battery chemsity innovations is quickening in the U.S. and abroad.
Kodak, which has accelerated its transformation on a chemicals firm from its photographic legacy, is working with Ateios Systems to demonstrate what both companies are calling a giant leap in battery storage innovation. Ateios and Kodak announced this week that they have demonstrated the fastest solvent-free production process for high-energy electrodes ever.
The RaiCure platform reportedly achieves a coating speed of 80 meters per minute, nearly three times faster than fluorine-polymer-based electrodes, according to the release. This technology, if proven and scaled at market, could solve challenges in energy consumption, supply chain and growth in utility-scale battery capacity production.
Ateios is gaining enough notice in the battery chemistry science world that a selection committee, headed by Nobel Laureate and lithium-ion technology pioneer Stanley Whittingham, awarded the company with a $350,000 research and development grant from the NSF Energy Storage Engine in upstate New York. The NSF Energy Storage Engine is led by Binghamton University.
“The work shared by Ateios and Kodak highlights promising progress toward solving key challenges in next-generation battery manufacturing,” Dr. Whittingham said in a statement. He is the British chemist known for discovering intercalation electrodes and invented the first rechargeable lithium metal battery patented in 1977.
These new electrodes which are under development by Ateios and Kodak are promising additions to materials for high-scale battery storage manufacturers, the two companies say. Ateios leads the electrode chemistry development while Kodak contributes its expertise in high-level mass production.
“Our work with Ateios demonstrates that RaiCure can be deployed as a drop-in solution for faster, environmentally friendly, and more efficient electrode coating at manufacturing scale,” said Terry Taber, chief technical officer at parent Eastman Kodak Company.
The race to lead global battery chemistry innovation is pitting the U.S. against China and other competitors. China’s CATL earlier this year unveiled three new products, including the Naxtra, which it called the world’s first mass-produced sodium-ion battery.
The other new CATL batteries are the Freevoy Dual-Power Battery and the second-generation Shenxing Superfast Charging Battery. The Naxtra reportedly has a lifespan of more than 10,000 charge cycles.
Last year, the federal Argonne National Laboratory reported its research had enhanced sodium-ion batteries by preventing cracks in the cathode particles during the synthesis process, making what the researchers hope is a cost-effective and sustainable future alternative to lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and grids.
The increased demand of lithium-ion batteries, which current dominates the battery energy storage market, could lead to lithium supply shortages within the next five to 10 years.
Currently, however, lithium-ion and lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) chemistries dominate the world market cornering more than 90 percent of the stationary and electric vehicle battery market with nearly $200 billion in revenues. Many observers expected that domination to continue in the short term as distributed energy and microgrid projects are increasingly deployed in an era of exponential data center, AI and industrial electrification demand growth.
Ateios and Kodak contend that this new RaiCure innovation can offer faster speeds and produce chemical-free electrodes for synthetic graphite, lithium cobalt oxide, lithium nickel manganese and LFP materials which make up most of the massive lithium-ion battery market.
““With Kodak, we've shown that sustainability, scalability, high yields, and speed can coexist without compromising performance,” Ateios System CEO and founder Rajan Kumar said. “We’ve already secured multiple POs and are shipping electrodes to battery OEMs in Asia and North America.”
In 2024 alone, power generation and energy developers added more than 10 GW of new battery storage capacity in the U.S., according to federal statistics. Overall U.S. installed battery capacity is expected to reach nearly 50 GW by the end of this year.
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About the Author
Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
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Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.