Aussie battery tech to power EVs – eventually

Hypercars, heavy trucks, electric bikes and even flying cars have more potential to bring groundbreaking Australian-developed graphene-aluminium battery technology to the transport world than the mainstream car industry.

The CEO of Brisbane-based Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG), Craig Nicol, has warned not to expect graphene-aluminium technology to be available in family cars in the near future, with lithium-ion batteries likely to power most EVs for some time.

That’s despite GMG claiming its graphene-aluminium batteries have significant advantages in power density, longevity, charging speeds, overall weight and even temperature management.

There is also a massively reduced risk of thermal runaway fires, like the one at the Tesla-powered Victorian Big Battery facility near Geelong last week.

GMG’s first coin-cell factory could deliver hundreds of millions of sales a year Pouch cells, like those used in iPhones, will follow before GMG directs its focus automotive applications.

“We can get there [automotive], but it for us to go to that market straight away,” Nicol told carsales.

“So the , hypercars and obviously personal electronics, and even the grid may well be a much more lucrative market and eventually we’ll get drawn the EVs.

“By then energy density will be far above what we see in today, and with no cooling and really, really fast charging.”

GMG hopes to build its first factory in Brisbane – where it is based – in 2022, despite the fact the Queensland capital is hardly a hub of the global battery cell industry.

“We have aspirations to get a factory up and running next year in Brisbane and get our prototypes all worked out and we will have a review of other locations as we grow,” said Nicol.

“You’ve got existing coin cell applications and then new coin cell applications, so the market is .

“I’ve got proposals from companies on how use our batteries to deliver technologies that can’t be supported on lithium-ion.”

While the advantages of graphene-aluminium batteries seem perfect for automotive use, most electric vehicle (EV) architectures are designed around lithium-ion pouch packs (though Tesla still uses cylindrical cells).

“When you move through the EV space, there are lots of opportunities to work there,” Nicol explained.

“Some automotive companies have reached out, but the immense share of the interest [for GMG] has been in fast-moving consumer goods, because they can change over [their cell technology] much faster.

“Then there are new technologies that aren’t out there yet, and it’s really exciting how many companies have been in touch with technologies that have been waiting for a different battery technology.

“There is a biotech company that wants to be able to use impregnable batteries, and you can’t use lithium for that because it could burst open and cook the [Internet of Things] -plus”

But automotive use for the GMG graphene-aluminium battery pouch cells is likely to be pushed off the company’s first page of priorities due to the car industry’s wholesale, long-term bet on lithium-ion.

“Lithium-ion has set up a whole framework about how batteries need to work in an EV and this battery has completely tested paradigms and the LI engineers go through these upset conversations on the phone.

“‘W, I can charge at more than 2 amps? Wait, I don’t need cooling?’” Nicol said.

“There’s still some pushback, especially in Australia and the US, that an electric-vehicle future is needed at all.

“The energy transition has already happened. We just have to catch up with it,” Nicol said.

want better [battery technology] than what’s out there, and they want it at scale and they want it for emissions and they want to get a better outcome than lithium.

-ion problems and limitations, but using a new technology automotive, unless you can bolt straight into the space created in the architectures for lithium-ion batteries, you won’t get in.”

Automotive interest in the batteries has come from both mainstream and unusual places, Nicol confirmed.

“We have had a lot of requests from EV makers in India

“Interest has come from Taiwan but China‘Lithium Inc’.”

Hypercar manufacturers have joined more than companies that have knocked on GMG’s door since news of the battery technology broke.

“We have a number of really fast supercars that are basically capped at being able to distribute the power to the wheels because lithium-ion batteries can’t provide the current fast enough,” said Nicol

“They will burn up if they do so– they’re maxed out.”

While bound by confidentiality agreements, Nicol confirmed they were already plans with European supercar and hypercar makers

Instead of mainstream cars and SUVs, the immediate automotive future for the GMG battery is as a hydrogen replacement for heavy transport, bicycles and motorcycles, as well as adding (much-needed) credibility to flying cars.

“We hope to have some supercar-type co-development so we can show this off,” Nicol admitted.

It has always been assumed that long-haul semi-trailers would transition to zero-emissions via hydrogen fuel-cells because lithium-ion batteries didn’t have the range or recharging speeds to make them suitable.

“The truck market is likely to be a big contender,” Nicol said. “Lithium-ion batteries came in and saved the car industry from hydrogen, and now long-range truck makers actually are secretly hoping a battery would come and save them, too.

“There is no special issue with range for graphene-aluminium, with a 400kWh or pack. We are sitting at 150-160at the moment as the maximum, but it’s early and we wouldn’t need much cooling, if any.”

Nicol said the dealbreaker for the truck industry was the graphene-aluminium battery’s ability to recharge just as quickly as a hydrogen or diesel refill.

“A megaWatt battery in a truck would charge with this as fast as you could fill it with hydrogen,” he said.

“That really got them excited. They’d really like to see hydrogen move on like it did in cars.

“The low-mileage, regional rigs in Europe are probably going to become lithium-ion customers, but the problem is that charging long-range trucks takes too long. Hydrogen is seen as the long-term choice there.

“I’ve got clear indications from bigger guys that they want this to come in and take over the longdistance {applications] from hydrogen.”

Even the mining industry, with its Euclid-style trucks, is a future target for electrification.

“The largest trucks for mining need to be really fast charging; very likely we can do something there as well,” Nicol said.

“They can take the power in and discharge it out for high torque at high amps.”

The idea of flying cars has long sat on the periphery of the car industry, but more than a dozen car-makers are now working on vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles, including Toyota.

GMG insists its battery technology should help finally make it a reality.

“What’s clear is to have an drone or air taxi, to use lithium-ion is really difficult and close to not workable,” Nicol insisted. “The lithium-ion battery overheats on lift-off from the ground.

“We are getting a lot of interest in the air-taxi space because our power density means we can get the electricity out to the drone motors, take off and not overheat the batteries.

“They are telling us that with the lithium-ion batteries they have to stay on the ground after a liftoff to cool down before they lift off again.”

The cooling requirements for contemporary lithium-ion batteries also add complexity, weight and power electronics to manage it all.

“We have interest for air drones, air ambulances air , talking to us,” Nicol said.

“They’re saying it’s great because they are likely to have multiple lift-offs without having to cool down the batteries or even fit cooling systems. This pouch cell will enable a whole new range of air .”

“There is a market with ambulances. It’s a very specific market and low use to get everybody comfortable [with flying cars]. They would be low and low maintenance compared to a helicopter.”

There are political issues with energy supply for specialist drones employed by military, police, fire and ambulance services. Most of the early use of such drones will come from the US, and the US wants its supply chains to be based in NAFTA. GMG is listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange.

“ bought by police and the federal government in America can only be made in North America,” said Nicol.

‘’

Lithium-ion batteries, the centre of mainstream automotive development for the last decade, have seen energy density rise four per cent per year on average for the last 20 years and now top out at around 0.7kWh per litre.

Usable energy density, though, is a pliable number, with manufacturers bending its definition to their will.

Tesla’s Panasonic 2170 cells have around 0.71kWh per litre, for example, though that advantage dissipates in the car, with the cylindrical shape of the cells compromising their packaging efficiency.

“With ours right now, we think we can get to 1kWh per litre with our pouch pack,” Nicol insisted.

“The power density [the ability to charge fast] is really exciting, and what’s also really exciting is volumetric energy density: the kW hours per litre.”

The kW per litre (of volume) metric is different from the usual metrics used in the car industry, like kWh and kW/kg.

around because they currently work in so many different, but the world has long looked for another battery chemistry because of its acknowledged problems

These include dendrites forming inside cells, cooling complexity, sovereign security and thermal bursting.

Another key issue is recyclability, with former Tesla co-founder and chief engineer JB Straubel recently raising $US700 million for his Redwood Materials to recycle EV batteries.

“One day people will see what lithium-ion batteries really are. People will see what really goes in to make them and the full life cycle will be quite for them,” Nicol claimed.

“Our products are basically near 100 per cent recyclable. Right now we are at 3000 cycles, which is easily 10 years in a car or a bicycle or a laptop, and - 10,000 cycles, so there’s a longevity advantage.

“Once you’re done with it, you pull it apart, refurbish the aluminium foil, recycle the graphene and send it back out again. That’s how easy it is. That’s all this battery is.

“Right now we are looking at a graphene battery with a bit of aluminium. It’s not really an aluminium battery.”

Related: Lithium-ion battery safety in question