The Race to Graphene Batteries : Players and Market (Part 2)
This is the second part of the two post series — “The Race to Graphene Batteries”. The first part introduced the material graphene and how its unique properties would improve the existing battery technology.
This post discusses about bringing graphene based battery technology to the market and the current players in the race.
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Graphene’s current density is 1 million times greater than copper thereby making it an excellent conductor of electricity. Due to its immense potential, many companies have begun exhaustive R&D to test graphene based battery technology.
Players Involved : R&D
Samsung
In 2017, Samsung gained the edge when a team of researchers at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) developed a “ graphene ball “.
According to the official post, using the graphene ball would increase the capacity by 45% and boost charging speed by 5X as compared to the standard lithium-ion batteries in the market.
Theoretically, inclusion of graphene ball reduces the time for full charge to 12 min. Moreover, pre-corona, Samsung was (and hopefully still is) rumored to release a phone with graphene battery in 2021.
Log9 Materials
Incubated at IIT Roorkee, Log9 materials is an Indian startup launched in 2015 that strives to commercialize graphene by building consumer products in the domain of sustainable energy and filtration.
They have been working on producing graphene based metal-air batteries which increase the capacity five fold at one-third of the cost [2].
In addition, they went one step further to fabricate aluminum fuel cells that can potentially power electric vehicles for 1000 km.
Huawei
In 2016, Huawei announced world’s first long-life span graphene assisted Li-ion batteries that are capable of withstanding high temperatures up to 60 °C — a good 10 °C above the threshold limit of standard Li-ion batteries.
Though the technology may not be used in smartphones, Huawei believes that it will reshape the storage systems of cellular communication base stations.
Increasing the range of operating temperatures, increases the battery life to more than four years thereby reducing resources consumed by air-conditioning systems [3].
Player’s Involved: Bringing Graphene Based Batteries to Market
Graphene based batteries have been introduced into the market in the form of power banks and travel chargers.
Production of graphene based power banks by companies like Real Graphene, Chargeasap, Indiegogo Projects and Elecjet have succeeded in pushing the technology to the market.
In an interview with Digital Trends, Samuel Gong, CEO of Real Graphene said
People always think graphene is the thing of the future, but I’m here to correct them. It’s here now. We create a battery that can charge super fast, is very cool, and has a long life time in terms of cycle charges.
Though a surprising choice, I think the current leaders are the power bank and travel charger manufacturers like RealGraphene and Elecjet are because they launched their product into the market.
Log9 Materials is a contender but due to its product which consumes more manufacturing and testing time, it may not be the current leader.
The race is still on and it is far too early to pick a winner! The most interesting aspect is that graphene based batteries are being developed for different applications.
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Thank you everyone for your time.
References
[1] Samsung News Room, “Samsung Develops Battery Material with 5x Faster Charging Speed”, Nov, 2017
[2] Graphene info, “Graphene and Batteries”
[3] Huawei News, “Huawei Achieves Major Breakthrough in Graphene-Assisted High Temperature Li-ion Batteries”, Dec, 2016
