[Music] on today's episode of still to be determined i'm going to be interviewing dan alpern from battery streak about their new fast charging battery technology that uses niobium as you can probably tell i'm not sean farrell writer of sci-fi and kids books sean was traveling and wasn't able to record with me this week so i thought it'd be the perfect time to share a larger excerpt of my interview with dan alpern from battery streak i used portions of this interview from the undecided video this battery breakthrough lets evs charge in minutes i'll include a link in the description if you haven't seen it yet but part of what fascinated me about this battery chemistry is that it uses niobium there's also a lot of really interesting feedback on that video a lot of people made the argument that they'd rather have longer lasting batteries versus faster charging ones but i kind of fall in the camp of having my cake and eating it too like i'd like to have both so tech advances like this are exciting to see hitting the market i already published this full interview on patreon so if you're interested in seeing undecided videos without ads getting them early and seeing full interviews just like this one consider becoming a patron i have a whole bunch of cool interviews that are lined up over the coming weeks and months i'll include a link in the description for that too so without further ado here's my interview with dan to start things off i was hoping you could just kind of introduce yourself and give me a little brief introduction to your company great i'm dan alpern i'm the vice president of marketing for battery streak and battery streak is a company that's commercializing a technology that was developed at ucla and we're bringing to market fast charging at room temperature with longer life first things off would be like what sets battery streaks technology apart from other batteries that are available today well i think the key difference that sets battery streak technology apart from existing technology is our process our nano structured material process that allows batteries to charge without a chemical phase change that is the unique value proposition right and this is basically a replacement for what the anode side of the battery both the anode and the cathode okay and what the what are the main benefits of the system is it mainly for power capacity the primary benefits are are the fast charging capabilities so the ability to charge a battery like a capacitor and release energy like a battery a byproduct of this is that this material has a longer cycle life than traditional lithium ion batteries and because of the lack of heat being generated it's a safer battery in comparison to something like a lithium-ion battery what would the be the big differences be like as far as like heat differences like heat generated differences well as an example our technology can accept we shared some data with you where we can charge at a 6c rate and the ambient temperature only increases by 8 degrees celsius or 14 degrees fahrenheit so during the fast charge and discharge cycle the whole battery's not even getting above body temperature and that holds true for depending on basically true across all temperature ranges and during the entire charge cycle it holds through through the entire charge cycle and the testing that we've done both at lower temperatures and at higher temperatures that same constant has held true the eight degrees celsius increase during the fast charge and discharge cycles and to get to the technology of like the main uh the main element that you're using which is niobium there's always a ton of buzz around the future like a bunch of companies going into silicon and using other technologies and other elements that are supposed to give much higher capacity and better charging times but there's a lot of challenges around those but they seem to be getting all the buzz why aren't we hearing a whole lot about niobium like why why is it like not catching as much buzz as those other ones that's a great question matt and that's one of the reasons why we reached out to you for the first time publicly last week i presented our technology at nap bat international the organization that's designed around advanced battery materials and the north american supply chain so for a long time we haven't been talking to too many people about this technology so i think that's probably why there hasn't been the buzz you mentioned silicon sodium sulfur other types of technologies but i think the key element is that we've been quiet and carrying a big stick our technology is out of the lab we are working with prototypes we are doing product demonstrations and testing with our future customers and partners when you're comparing things like silicon to this there's obviously pros and cons to every technology so like silicon probably has its place and its purpose what what makes niobium different and what do you think the ideal use cases are for this that's a great question i think uh what makes niobium technology different is the the chemical properties without going into too much depth what we're able to do with the niobium technology makes this very exciting and i think i mentioned to you that cbmm one of the large miners of niobium is supporting our efforts in this regard i think the uses the the right use cases for our technology are like we talked about medical devices uh drones tools warehouse robots we've we've had a lot of activity in those areas and as we go towards the ev market and higher current charging that's available it's exciting for that but in the beginning at this stage what i'm talking to a lot of the automotive companies about is the energy recovery the ability to uh recover energy without heat as fast as it can be developed and for energy storage systems maybe a hybrid model that will uh alleviate the peak loading and off you know discharge harm that it does to to traditional lithium-ion battery systems those heat benefits like you've you brought up earlier specifically for evs and fast charging that's obviously one of the biggest issues you have to have these very complex battery management systems to keep the packs cool and maintained properly and manage that charge where it will ramp down over time as it gets closer to fully charged how does how would this change that from a user experience point of view from a customer point of view well i think from the customer experience all they're gonna the difference they're gonna see is they can pull up to a charger and get a full charge or close to a full charge in 10 minutes right now i don't think they're too concerned with all the internal whether there's a thermal management system we know that there are companies on working on managing the heat of the actual chargers themselves um that's going to be outside of our area of expertise and we know that they're developing that the same thing with the battery management system or the thermal management system i think there will be companies that are reluctant to dismiss their thermal management but i think as we prove our technology and they see that it's not needed they'll start saving more space and we'll see an increase in energy density just from the size that's created by not having to have so much equipment and a harness for thermal management which could also probably help reduce some of the costs associated to the battery absolutely so i think the right way to look at it is our battery may be the right battery for certain applications and in other applications maybe we're part of a hybrid battery system what about the uh impact you talked about cycle life a little bit like you sent me something dex with that showed showed it but i was like i would like to have you talk about it a little bit more in detail of like the benefits that you're seeing over the lifespan of a battery how many cycles these batteries can come through we're seeing two really exciting benefits so the first is um most most batteries are judged by when they get to 80 of their capacity and most lithium-ion batteries get to about a thousand cycles to 80 our technology our testing has shown that we're getting to 3 000 cycles at 80 percent and we've gone as far out as 9 000 cycles to 60 percent decline is something that the engineers can work around uh for example uh your home energy storage for your solar system that would be fine for you right exactly you can you can plan for that ahead of time so you get a little more capacity you need in the beginning and by the end it's still more than enough to get you through the end yeah and that linear predictable nature is is very interesting and to be talking right out of the gate about a battery that has three times the cycle life of current technology i i think is a good first card for us to lay down you also mentioned that you're you're out of the pilot fate i mean the the bench lab scale phase and you're you are in the pilot commercialization of your project right yes we're thrilled to be able to share this information publicly like i mentioned for the first time in some cases we're accepted for the advanced naval technology exercise by the navy we'll be demonstrating our technology to some of our potential partners and to the navy nrde infrastructure themselves so we have made we are currently making test pouch uh pouch cells and prototype batteries we have some right now we're working with one amp hour prototype test cells we have 2.5 and 5 amp hour test cells that are currently being produced for us and our partners as we ramp up our production and the technology that goes hand in hand with that we are a long way away from just making a lot of coin cells and looking at the taste data from those coin cells and one thing i thought was interesting when you last time we talked you showed me that the one of the pouches and the tabs were much larger than you typically see on a pouch and is and that's for handling the extra power that these batteries can take correct yeah we're doing we're doing two things right now we're using aluminum instead of copper and we're using the wider tabs to handle the higher current and as we go forward there are little structural engineering considerations that we're going to have to educate our end users in terms of dealing with the potential for the higher current to come through to circle back to niobium just for a minute um like you mentioned you your well your investors is cbmm which is one of the biggest boom suppliers in the world i've asked you this before but like when you're talking about supply chains this is one of the biggest issues right now obviously for the pandemic as well as for ramping up battery production at large trying to secure enough nickel for battery production like tesla's getting their own nickel supply it's like companies are trying to corner the market now since cbmm is you're one of your investors you have a direct line to one of the largest suppliers but the cure one of the things i was curious about was how does that supply compare to what you will need like if you're forecasting five years down the road is there enough supply and a supply chain in place to be able to handle the amount of battery production that you envision that that's a great question and and we've looked and in partnership with cbmm we've had a mckinsey study done to look at those projections both on the markets themselves and the availability the meeting that i sat in on with cbmm that was exactly the question that i asked our partner and they have no concerns about the future supply the five-year outlook they're ready to ramp up production of their minds and ship tons and mega tons of material out as soon as we deliver the customer base with our technology so we are not concerned about that supply chain moving forward and i also mentioned that we received an nsf grant we're currently working on a cobalt-free cathode and so that'll help with our next generation battery with the materials and as the varying cost of materials change in the market how does switching to this affect costs for the battery manufacturing does it increase the costs about the same like well i our financial people are still running the numbers on on what the final costs are going to look like when we get to a full production right now we're moving to a new facility we're currently in that process right now that's my my office is naked right now and uh we're going to go to a facility that has more space we have new reactors coming we'll increase our production from hundreds of grams of material a day to uh over four kilograms a day so that'll help and as as we go forward in time and we start to fine-tune the numbers we'll be able to give a better answer to this but i would think right out of the gate in the conversations that i'm having uh the three times longer cycle life the faster charging the lack of heat what cost would you put on a product that's safer that you can bring to a consumer market you've also mentioned before about why you are manufacturing batteries today like these pouches and stuff like that you're gonna be ramping up how much you can produce you yourself are not looking to be a massive battery producer but to license out the technology and the materials correct yeah at this time our company plan is for the largest customers let's say an automotive customer will will license the process for smaller customers will sell material and in very rare cases when i'm working with the dod we are actually getting involved in the battery production with some third and fourth parties to meet their needs but like anything in business that may change five years down the road but our current plan is not to get involved in the actual production of cells and i'll mention we're here in southern california california maybe isn't the friendliest place to make batteries so we'll ship our material to people that are going to make them in other places and when you partner with somebody let's say you're i'm not i'm throwing out names not suggesting this is who you're working with but like a panasonic or a lg chem or something like that where they have massive facilities where they're pumping out lots of batteries is there going to be a huge capital cost they have to spend to switch over to using this thank you for asking the question matt that's that's one of the great benefits of our material is that there's going to be zero cost for them to switch to our technology this material can be used on existium i'm sorry this material can be used on existing ion battery lines with today's equipment there's no need to retool or create a new factory to handle this it's really just the supply just the material itself it's a material my understanding of how the process works is they just need to clean everything off from the old batch before they start with our material right now also one of the things i'm going to talk about is like one of the potential not a con but like i said there's different batteries for different use cases sure not every technology is going to satisfy everything but like what are the differences like compared to something like what's being used in a tesla model 3 today for energy density things like that in terms of energy density that's the biggest difference we have a little less energy density than some of the top battery technologies maybe 20 percent less but our thinking is that the paradigm is already shifting in the ev market that we're talking about that cars will become lighter and everybody's racing to a higher mileage capacity battery but most drivers don't drive that far most most daily driving is 70 miles round trip so while people are pushing they're currently around 300 miles and they want to get to uh 700 miles what's really important is the charge time versus the run time if i give you a battery they can go 220 miles and you can stop and charge it in 10 minutes do you care that you're bad that your mileage isn't going to go 700 miles we don't think so and we're already seeing that from tesla in china they have designed a lower capacity battery to make that available to the market with success mercedes and fiat are talking about the same game that you know and changing the paradigm they're working with lighter materials and working on increased efficiencies in other areas to make a smaller energy density battery go farther what do you think is the biggest challenge or limiting factor in ramping up your company and getting this more out there what do you think is the biggest challenge for you i think i think the biggest challenge for us has been trying to develop this startup through the pandemic so all of our problems are really logistic problems uh our ramp up is going a little slower than we wanted to because of the supply chain issues so we have a long line of potential customers that are ready to accept test cells and validate our technology and that's what we're looking at for the next six to 12 months is going through that process and getting our technology into as many hands as possible so that they can validate continue these conversations that we're having you may not have a good answer for this but like when i was thinking about the biggest challenge for myself you've got this amazing battery technology that you can produce but then there's this other side of it which is the charging infrastructure like there's lots of fast chargers out there but you're talking typically about fast chargers that are 250 to 350 kilowatts for charging and you have this battery that could theoretically take that and more and do it in record time um it feels like another piece of the puzzle that needs to be figured out i mean do you have a take on that it is another piece of the puzzle that needs to be figured out but like i said the the ev market especially we're starting those conversations now because the lead time for a new battery technology to go into a car is so long and the infrastructure we know that tesla is already revamping their superchargers to handle higher voltage or higher wattage levels so we're not going to get too worried about that we'll start the conversations with the eve with the auto people now with some understanding that that's going to be a challenge for them as we get down the road and get close to our battery actually being in an ev but in the meantime there's a whole host of applications like medical devices uh and drones and tools that that high charging infrastructure isn't going to be necessary for so you could start to see this technology in the commercial landscape by next year right that was actually one of my following questions which was we've talked a lot about evs but if you're talking about commercial applications or even consumer applications from like power tools to phones are you talking to people beyond the commercial like tool are you looking at talking to people about consumer tech like laptops and phones and things like that as well i obviously i can't talk too much about specific companies but i think it's fair to say that whether it's medical devices hand tools phones computers there's a lot of interest and we're talking to a lot of companies in that arena and something that we haven't even touched on yet but that makes this conversation more interesting and that we're seeing a lot of interest when you talk about the computer guys i'll just say the the pseudo capacitance of our material is something that they're very interested in as well so again this technology it's not a super capacitor but it has pseudo-capacitance features so a charge is like a capacitor it holds energy and can release it like a battery and that's creating a very interesting nexus of where the applications in the commercial market are going to be for this technology that's really interesting so when when you're also talking about like this is gonna be a wild prediction for you to to say this but when do you think we would start to see your battery in use in the public like when would i be able to say oh see oh that battery is now this is a niobium battery in this x device that i could buy or i could use well let me let me look at my crystal ball matt and i'm going to say i'd like to think uh the track that we're on right now is 2023 is our target okay when you will start to see some commercial applications in the wild very soon then very soon okay and and that's like i said the key difference we are out of the lab we are in the process of commercializing this now and it's just a matter of generating enough material to make the cells to get into people's hands is there anything we haven't talked about that you'd want to bring up or cover i think i think the only thing that i'd really want to share is that we we just presented at napat like i mentioned we're going to go to the international battery seminar next month and present again our technology as we're talking to some of our partners our team from cbm cbmm is up here working with us to introduce the technology to some of the larger companies so the only thing that i'd want to say is if you're somebody out there that's looking for this technology is pick up the phone and let's talk because we it's it's very important for us to get to the right partners to bring this technology to market that's great thank you so much for taking the time again to talk to me about this i hope you enjoyed that interview so what do you think does that tech sound promising to you if you're on youtube drop a comment down below if you're listening to the podcast the contact info is in the description and if you'd like to support the podcast you can also toss a few coins at our heads as sean likes to say by going to still tbd.fm it's also extremely helpful if you review and rate us wherever you found the show like a podcast or google podcasts thanks for watching and for listening i'll see in the next one [Music]
2022-05-15