Zero Emissions Developments is seeking $30 million to build a manufacturing plant for its PowerCap batteries.
PowerCap batteries use recycled materials – mostly from tyres and plastics – to produce graphitic carbon for their anodes.
Further, the batteries are 100 percent recyclable at the end of their lives. This puts them at a green advantage to lithium-ion batteries, which use mined components for manufacturing and cannot be recycled.
Zero Emissions Developments (ZED), an Australian company that developed the technology, is now seeking $30 million in private investment to manufacture its batteries in Queensland.
ZED will use waste gathered from its own recycling plant in Bowen, Queensland.
A company press release explains the technology:
By using a recyclable graphitic carbon, the battery behaves like a non-faradaic supercapacitor, which lasts twice as long. PowerCap batteries are a hybrid of faradaic and non-faradaic (electro-chemical and electro-static) interactions, known as pseudocapacitors. The electro-chemical architecture is provided by metal-oxides and the electro-static is provided by a unique doped graphitic carbon chemical architecture. This asymmetrical architecture allows a greater and more responsive cycling life (circa 20,000 cycles before it goes below 80 percent of the original capacity), with improved charging and discharging properties.
The PowerCap Metal-Oxide-Graphitic Pseudocapacitor Battery is a sustainable energy storage system which lasts two to three times longer than standard lithium-ion batteries. Not only is it safer, cleaner and more affordable than traditional batteries, it also assures the equivalent energy density found in Lithium-Ion batteries and provides up to ten times more power density – this means the energy is delivered almost instantly, important when powering mobile devices like electric cars.
“We know this technology is going to help advance our ability to rely on solar energy and manufacture electric vehicles,” says Ahmed El Safty, PowerCap Un Ltd principal engineer and CEO.
“By building the batteries here in Australia, we’re able to control the quality of the batteries we produce and create jobs for Australians at the same time. We welcome those wanting to invest in technologically advanced renewables to make contact,” El Safty says.
Photo by Joey Csunyo on Unsplash
