CEO Siyu Huang of Factorial Energy talks through recent advancements in solid-state batteries, which promise significant improvements in energy density and safety and are paving the way for electric vehicles with substantially increased range to hit the market within the next few years.
I just want to point out that when I was going to graduate school, I fabricated improved poly solar cells with Li diffusion. To apply the Lithium metal, I went to Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (DOE). Lithium metal in this lab was very reactive and had to be stored in a beaker filled with Toluene. So, I wonder does the volatility of Li metal play a part in the difficulty of fabricating solid-state batteries.
The CVD for the polysilicon was likely more challenging. To keep a solid lithium electrode from reacting you just have to keep unexpected oxygen out of the cell, which you have to do anyway for any lithium battery. Failure to control oxygen in the cell leads to that run-away fire risk people fear.
Dendrite formation kills your battery in 3 ways, two of them are catastrophic:
1. Dendrites are concentrations of lithium in the pack and that locally saturates the kinetics of charge transfer while starving it elsewhere - you get uneven heat and power creating more dendrites.
2. Dendrites can grow into the liquid and short the anode to the cathode. Short circuit, bad day possible fire for a very bad day.
3. Dendrites can grow and pierce the pouch, letting air into the cell starting a fire. Very bad day for everything near the cell, especially the other cells.
#3 here is the volatility of Li metal mentioned above. But in this solid state cell that lithium metal is bounded with copper on one side and a proprietary layer towards the electrolyte, which serves to eliminate the dendrite risk to the cell integrity that comes with a dendrite free to grow in a plastic pouch full of liquid electrolyte.
I expect they'll have more trouble with Lithium and Copper delaminating (3x thermal expansion coefficient difference, developing into poor charge collection over time) than oxygen getting into the cells, as their cells are less exposed to the mechanism that ends up letting surprise oxygen into the cells.
Shortly after this got published, Quantumscape (a solid state battery company) announced they are doing a joint venture with Volkswagen. From my limited reading, that puts them ahead of Factorial it seems. Their manufacturing is harder, but their tech seems potentially better.
Lithium is great for making rechargeable batteries. It is also extremely reactive to water, moisture and even moist air. I am sure this problem is addressed technologically, just as gasoline safety is well-addressed, but I am not convinced the general public is being accurately informed. What does OSHA have to say about it?
Great program, David! I have been wanting to learn more about solid state batteries for some time. I wish the federal funding better supported people like Siyu. Thank you!
There is a lot of jargon in this post and it is all important to the point, so I'll have to spell some of that out in more detail. It went by fast in the discussion but Jigar Shah and the LPO operating at TRL 8 translates to a transition from Series B to Growth Funding- aka commercialization (or thereabouts) with big money and big, but well characterized, financing risk. They solve the question: how do you get your hands on $50B to build out your large factories and facilities now that you've already demonstrated tens of millions of annual revenues from your good start.
Factorial Energy at <5 years in hard-cleantech could even be pre-revenue right now. Your hardtech cleantech startup might go 7 years before a new technology bet makes it from the lab to the field. So the journey from Seed (pre-revenue) through Series A (~$1M annual revenue) through Series B (>$10M ARR) is where folks run out of funding and where acceleration via industrial policy can really help. Of course, that's where the big unknowns are so you get easy to lose fights over picking winners and making bad bets. That leads us to the IRA point.
The IRA does a lot of good. It also picked a fight with the world around a few named technologies that we collectively decided to bring onshore. One of those is Lithium Ion batteries. If you don't fit the definition of that named segment perfectly you don't qualify because we named methods and molecules instead of outcomes (easier to quantify and measure). DAC is another place where the subsidy is explicit - why should we prefer air capture to ocean capture, which has 100x the concentration? Because Air Capture made it into the policy by name. Some of that is necessary because the IRA is a big program, but it doesn't mean we get avoid locally sub-optimal outcomes along the way. If we could pass more legislation these rough edges could get tidied up.
So, the time consideration of taking the incentive or delaying also fits into managing growth and survival of the company over the next... decade. A much richer discussion here than you get from highly funded startups looking to serve as an intermediary in another established market or make a splash in the consumer space. You love to see (hear) it.
I just want to point out that when I was going to graduate school, I fabricated improved poly solar cells with Li diffusion. To apply the Lithium metal, I went to Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (DOE). Lithium metal in this lab was very reactive and had to be stored in a beaker filled with Toluene. So, I wonder does the volatility of Li metal play a part in the difficulty of fabricating solid-state batteries.
The CVD for the polysilicon was likely more challenging. To keep a solid lithium electrode from reacting you just have to keep unexpected oxygen out of the cell, which you have to do anyway for any lithium battery. Failure to control oxygen in the cell leads to that run-away fire risk people fear.
Dendrite formation kills your battery in 3 ways, two of them are catastrophic:
1. Dendrites are concentrations of lithium in the pack and that locally saturates the kinetics of charge transfer while starving it elsewhere - you get uneven heat and power creating more dendrites.
2. Dendrites can grow into the liquid and short the anode to the cathode. Short circuit, bad day possible fire for a very bad day.
3. Dendrites can grow and pierce the pouch, letting air into the cell starting a fire. Very bad day for everything near the cell, especially the other cells.
#3 here is the volatility of Li metal mentioned above. But in this solid state cell that lithium metal is bounded with copper on one side and a proprietary layer towards the electrolyte, which serves to eliminate the dendrite risk to the cell integrity that comes with a dendrite free to grow in a plastic pouch full of liquid electrolyte.
I expect they'll have more trouble with Lithium and Copper delaminating (3x thermal expansion coefficient difference, developing into poor charge collection over time) than oxygen getting into the cells, as their cells are less exposed to the mechanism that ends up letting surprise oxygen into the cells.
Shortly after this got published, Quantumscape (a solid state battery company) announced they are doing a joint venture with Volkswagen. From my limited reading, that puts them ahead of Factorial it seems. Their manufacturing is harder, but their tech seems potentially better.
So whats the major disruption she speaks of.
Are you going to join Threads/Mastodon… tiktok?! I'd like to follow you somewhere but I'm not touching Twitter.
Lithium is great for making rechargeable batteries. It is also extremely reactive to water, moisture and even moist air. I am sure this problem is addressed technologically, just as gasoline safety is well-addressed, but I am not convinced the general public is being accurately informed. What does OSHA have to say about it?
This is also a new idea for solid state. It is much further behind in development. We need all approaches to stimulate competition and funding.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1050283
Great program, David! I have been wanting to learn more about solid state batteries for some time. I wish the federal funding better supported people like Siyu. Thank you!
I feel that funding discussion in my bones.
There is a lot of jargon in this post and it is all important to the point, so I'll have to spell some of that out in more detail. It went by fast in the discussion but Jigar Shah and the LPO operating at TRL 8 translates to a transition from Series B to Growth Funding- aka commercialization (or thereabouts) with big money and big, but well characterized, financing risk. They solve the question: how do you get your hands on $50B to build out your large factories and facilities now that you've already demonstrated tens of millions of annual revenues from your good start.
Factorial Energy at <5 years in hard-cleantech could even be pre-revenue right now. Your hardtech cleantech startup might go 7 years before a new technology bet makes it from the lab to the field. So the journey from Seed (pre-revenue) through Series A (~$1M annual revenue) through Series B (>$10M ARR) is where folks run out of funding and where acceleration via industrial policy can really help. Of course, that's where the big unknowns are so you get easy to lose fights over picking winners and making bad bets. That leads us to the IRA point.
The IRA does a lot of good. It also picked a fight with the world around a few named technologies that we collectively decided to bring onshore. One of those is Lithium Ion batteries. If you don't fit the definition of that named segment perfectly you don't qualify because we named methods and molecules instead of outcomes (easier to quantify and measure). DAC is another place where the subsidy is explicit - why should we prefer air capture to ocean capture, which has 100x the concentration? Because Air Capture made it into the policy by name. Some of that is necessary because the IRA is a big program, but it doesn't mean we get avoid locally sub-optimal outcomes along the way. If we could pass more legislation these rough edges could get tidied up.
So, the time consideration of taking the incentive or delaying also fits into managing growth and survival of the company over the next... decade. A much richer discussion here than you get from highly funded startups looking to serve as an intermediary in another established market or make a splash in the consumer space. You love to see (hear) it.
thanks! Very interesting and hopeful