Lyten has made progress in stretching the lifetime of its batteries, not too long ago seeing some samples attain as excessive as 300 cycles, Mickolajczak says. She attributes the success to Lyten’s 3D graphene materials, which helps forestall undesirable facet reactions and increase the cell’s power density. The corporate can also be trying to make use of 3D graphene, a extra sophisticated construction than the two-dimensional selection, in different merchandise like sensors and composites.
Even with current progress, Lyten remains to be removed from producing batteries that may final lengthy sufficient to energy an EV. Within the meantime, the corporate plans to deliver its cells to market in locations the place lifetime isn’t fairly so necessary.
Since lithium-sulfur batteries will be extraordinarily light-weight, the corporate is working with prospects constructing units like drones, for which changing the batteries incessantly can be definitely worth the financial savings on weight, says Keith Norman, Lyten’s chief sustainability officer.
The corporate opened a pilot manufacturing line in 2023 with a most capability of 200,000 cells yearly. It not too long ago started producing a small variety of cells, that are scheduled for supply to paying prospects later this yr.
The corporate hasn’t publicly shared which firms will obtain the primary batteries. Transferring ahead, two of the corporate’s principal focuses are bettering lifetime and scaling manufacturing of each 3D graphene and battery cells, Norman says.
The highway to lithium-sulfur batteries that may energy EVs remains to be an extended one, however as Mikolajczak factors out, at the moment’s staple chemistry, lithium-ion, has improved leaps and bounds on price, lifetime, and power density within the years that firms have been working to tweak it.
Folks have tried out an enormous vary of chemistry choices in batteries, Mikolajczak says. “To make one in all them actuality requires that you simply put within the work.”
