Prieto Battery... 1000x more powerful, 10x longer, cheaper

[Lock]

http://coloradoenergynews.com/2009/12/csu-startup-aims-to-manufacture-next-generation-batteries/

FORT COLLINS: Colorado State University’s Clean Energy commercialization arm, Cenergy, has co-founded a new company that, it says, will manufacture batteries up to 1,000 times more powerful, 10 times longer-lasting and cheaper than traditional batteries – technology that could revolutionize the military, automobile and health care industries.

Prieto Battery is the first startup produced by the business arm of Colorado State’s new Clean Energy Supercluster, called Cenergy. The university formed Cenergy in March 2008 to more quickly move clean-energy innovations from research laboratories into the commercial marketplace.

The technology was originally conceived by Amy Prieto, an assistant chemistry professor in Colorado State’s College of Natural Sciences. Prieto Battery aims to produce lithium ion batteries based on tiny or nanostructured materials on a mass scale.

Prieto expects to demonstrate the first prototype of her battery by early next year. Bohemian Asset Management in Fort Collins – a privately held division of the Bohemian Cos. – has supplied the first round of funding for the new company.

“The automobile and clean energy sectors are hamstrung by expensive, slow charging batteries that exhibit low-power densities,” said Prieto, who is chief scientific officer for the company. “Resolving these issues will create explosive growth and resolve major obstacles to these markets.”

“Battery systems are the single most important component when it comes to reducing the cost of PHEVs and EVs,” said L.G. Chavez, president and CEO of The Burt Automotive Network in Denver. “We are routinely asked by our fleet customers when new battery technology will be available. Dr. Prieto’s battery could not only help our industry take a significant step forward but also change the world as we know it.”

How it works: Using a process called electrodeposition, Prieto deposits or grows nanowires that make up the first key piece of the battery, the anode. She again uses electrodeposition to coat these tiny structures with polymers – organic materials – that conduct lithium ions but that keep the anode and the cathode electrically separated. The separation is important for keeping the battery from shorting. The cathode material is added, and the result is a three-dimensional battery. The nanowires that make up the anode cover a surface area that is 10,000 times greater than a traditional battery. By comparison, roughly 1,000 nanowires could fit in the width of a human hair.

This high number of three-dimensional wires creates a much larger surface area than any other current battery. The electrodeposition manufacturing method is fast and inexpensive, allowing the technology to be scaled up to create batteries that can be used for everything from pacemakers to automobiles.

The automotive market alone, by 2013, is expected to surpass 1 million cars with 18 kilowatt hours of batteries each for a projected market of $4 billion.

“We believe Prieto Battery has created a process that will transform the electric/hybrid vehicle marketplace. Not only will it create a much more powerful battery that can be charged in minutes rather than hours, but it can be manufactured at half the price of current battery technologies, thus opening the market to a much broader group of consumers,” said Tim Reeser, Cenergy chief operating officer and CEO of Prieto Battery. “And with partners such as Bohemian, Colorado State professors continue to make a global impact on our planet while creating primary jobs in Northern Colorado.”

CSU’s technology transfer office applied for a patent that encompasses all Prieto Battery technology in February. The patent has been exclusively licensed to Prieto Battery.

Prieto joined Colorado State in 2005. She completed her post-doctoral research at Harvard University and received her doctoral degree from the University of California-Berkeley.

About the Clean Energy Supercluster

Colorado State’s Clean Energy Supercluster is an alliance of academic researchers, economists and business experts organized to address global challenges, encourage collaboration and bridge the vastly different worlds of business and academia. The Supercluster combines an academic component and a business component, which allows the public to reap benefits from the university’s research and acceleration of this research-to-market model.

Cenergy is the business component of the Clean Energy Supercluster. Professor Bryan Willson in mechanical engineering serves as the director of the Clean Energy Supercluster and chief scientific officer of Cenergy, overseeing the clean energy research activities of more than 100 professors in all eight colleges. Reeser, as the chief operating officer, focuses on forging business alliances and developing new commercial opportunities for the results of that research.

[gilnet]

there are 9,999,999 stories in the lithium city...

[jtmjtm2001]

OMG

[Lock]

there are 9,999,999 stories in the lithium city...

hehe... ya ya... Nice to see folks applying themselves along these lines though. Amy's a bright girl:
http://www.chem.colostate.edu/alprieto/Amy-Page/Amy%20Page.htm

and the COO at Cenergy has jumped aboard Prieto Battery as CEO also. He's been interested in hybrids since university.

Bohemian is a bit mysterious but there are mentions of investments in algae and solar tech:
http://www.bohemiancompanies.com/

tks
Lock

[mwkeefer]

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www ... panies.com
http://web.archive.org/web/200212100240 ... index.html

Here's an old Employment Application PDF for Bohemian Companies, complete with proper address and phone #
http://web.archive.org/web/200403032212 ... /bcapp.pdf



It would appear at one time bohemiancompanies was all about wine, a vineyard (if I am interpreting this correctly) and a wine club - odd bed partners for LiIon?

-Mike

PS: Check the source, they were hiring for an intern and accepting applications at the bohemiannights website (view->source)

[swbluto]

there are 9,999,999 stories in the lithium city...

So true, it makes me wonder which of them are going to be recoginized as true stories within a decade. It seems sooooo exciting to think where energy storage technology might be in a decade from now.

[CNCAddict]

My bet is on http://www.amprius.com/ making the next jump, or something similar. Hopefully the EESTOR fiasco will die and allow the funds to go to people doing real work.

[dogman]

I saw Preito on some kind of green channel show. She struck me as one damn smart scientist!. But having seen the NMSU chemistry and engineering depts for 30 years, I really understand the "lottery" that is research. Lots of startups with great ideas that do work, just not economic enough though. Lots of grants and investments and lots of work for some scientists, maybe a lifetimes worth, but not always a Edison like world changing new technology though. Science is really a slog, 90% perspiration as Edison said. We need lots of Prietos busting ass out there, so just one will make the breakthrough that makes storing green energy cheap and practical, large scale. But predicting which one does it? About as certain as picking a lottery number.

[CNCAddict]

About Thomas Edison... http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/edison.asp

[gestalt]

     â€œIf Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search.
I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.”

-Tesla

[samy_2111]

If that kind of energy has been discovered then their will be evolution in energy sources.
And new unique name that the new source will called.

[Lock]

`Bit more info in the Denver Post yesterday:
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_14112415

Some snips:

"We believe we can make (lithium-ion batteries) for about one-third the present cost," said Reeser, chief executive of Prieto Battery.

Prieto's batteries bundle together microscopic wires coated in a polymer, and the bundle makes up one electrode, called the anode.

The thicket of nanowires surround another electrode, the cathode, making transfer of energy faster than possible for batteries that have more distance between electrodes.

Reeser said the company hopes to have a battery on the market in 2011.

But Prieto will face fierce competition, said Miller, of USCAR, an automotive industry group.

Her technology is "a bit novel," he added. But companies in the U.S., Japan and elsewhere are scrambling to develop high-power batteries stable and small enough to work reliably in vehicles.

Prieto's challenge will be to produce something that can be marketed in quantity quickly.

"These nanowires don't form as perfect columns. Getting them formed and uniformly coated is kind of challenging. Maybe not (in a laboratory) but scaling up production and getting it done affordably can be challenging," Miller said.

Prieto is confident that her design will easily adapt to mass production, and that she is far ahead of the competition.

"This has been designed to be scaled up and that is where everybody else has been struggling," Reeser said. "What we have done is change the approach to manufacturing so we can market these nanowires in large quantity."

[Kirk]

This all sounds so promising I'm trying not to drool.

Prieto is confident that her design will easily adapt to mass production, and that she is far ahead of the competition.

"This has been designed to be scaled up and that is where everybody else has been struggling," Reeser said. "What we have done is change the approach to manufacturing so we can market these nanowires in large quantity.

[Lock]

I came across these msgs posted within this last week:
From James Mosby
Graduate Student at Colorado State University
"I am working with a group "Prieto Battery, Inc." that is implementing electrochemistry as a means to fabricate solid-state Li-ion batteries. What I mean by electrochemistry is electrodeposition and electroless deposition. Electrochemistry techniques have the benefit of not needing the high cost environments that are required for other solid-state fabrication techniques. Just as in photovoltaics we are not the only group that is looking to electrochemistry as an alternative to fabricate devices that are plagued by high fabrication cost. Based on laboratory cost we estimate a large reduction in production cost compared to Li-ion for HPEV/EV batteries currently on the market.
From our experience I think there will be a economical solid-state battery competing in the HPEV/EV market in the near future. "

and:
"We are getting close to solving the Li-diffusion problem between the cathode and anode, with a couple different mythologies. We are still focused on getting good Li-ion diffusion between the electrodes, so we have not yet looked into the self discharge rate of a cell.
Based on laboratory cost we do think we will be well below the the $350/kWh pricing."

tks
Lock

ps... love the way James sub'ed the word "mythologies" for "methodologies" hehe