Nanom is unveiling a patented battery know-how that makes use of nanoparticles to make batteries that are far more efficient than the ever-present lithium-ion batteries used right this moment.

If it really works, the know-how may revolutionize batteries utilized in all the things from electrical automobiles to laptops and smartphones. Nanom claims its batteries last 9 times longer than the nickel-iron batteries Thomas Edison invented and more than than 9 times longer than lithium-ion batteries. In addition they weigh 5 times much less and enhance vitality density, recharge charges, and battery disposal.

Nanom isn’t disclosing the direct comparability to lithium-ion batteries but. However it’s saying that an electrical automotive with Nanom tech may drive throughout the USA on a single battery cost. That’s fairly mind-boggling.

And the corporate has raised $three million from buyers in Silicon Valley and the Nordics, because of backers like Village World, whose community consists of Invoice Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Reid Hoffman.

An enormous benefit of the nanotechnology Nanom makes use of is that it may be utilized to present lithium-ion batteries, creating more floor space to generate vitality with the battery cells. Nanom could make the tech in its labs and simply add manufacturing to present manufacturing crops.

Above: Nanom CEO Armann at Plug & Play Mobility.

Picture Credit score: Nanom

“The issue has at all times been that nanotechnology has been just a little bit caught within the lab,” CEO Armann Kojic mentioned in an interview with VentureBeat. “It’s like an idea that has been nice for making a million-dollar battery, however not one that really goes in your automotive. And what’s distinctive about our method is the actual fact that our core technique of making nanoparticles is a mass manufacturing technique. That is very a lot about bringing it out of the lab and right into a product.”

The Edison nickel-iron battery is more than 120 years outdated. Utilizing iron and nickel particles and carbon fiber, Nanom makes the battery usable once more. The corporate says its supplies are 80% cheaper than these in an everyday battery — and more disposable. The nickel-iron battery is utilized in large-scale vitality storage gadgets.

“The Edison battery is sort of a showcase for us … to point out what could possibly be completed to take a inexperienced battery and counter the weaknesses,” Kojic mentioned.

Nanom is speaking to a variety of transportation, stationary storage, and battery corporations about instantly adopting its nanoparticles into their very own proprietary designs.

“Everyone knows that this battery downside exists,” Kojic mentioned. “And there’s plenty of components that want to come back collectively, just like the environmental issue, the price issue, and the effectiveness of the battery.”

The way it works

Above: How the nanoparticles improve floor space.

Picture Credit score: Nanom

Nanom’s nanoparticle know-how permits any battery formulation to be essentially altered for the higher by dramatically rising each facet of its efficiency. It does so by immersing the battery supplies in nanoparticles that improve the floor space that generates vitality on a microscopic degree.

These particles are many orders of magnitude more efficient in rising vitality floor space than the present options, which makes them ultimate for this technology of battery vitality storage. And Nanom instantly enhances the vitality density of any battery, Kojic mentioned.

“It’s all concerning the ultra-high floor space, which impacts the charging charges and the capability,” Kojic mentioned. “If I take a enterprise card, I’ve the floor space because the entrance and the again of the enterprise card. But when I reduce it right into a billion items, it turns into a number of soccer fields of a floor space, I’m utilizing the perimeters and all the things in between. And we will use all of that unused space for storing vitality.”

Above: The benefits of Nanom’s nanoparticles.

Picture Credit score: Nanom

Nanom has the flexibility to transform present battery supplies into nanoparticle dimension, enabling the identical advantages for any battery course of while not having to retool — the nanoparticles are merely combined into the slurry that is a regular a part of all battery manufacturing strains. Nanom has achieved huge scale in its manufacturing course of and might already fulfill the necessities of key battery markets. In that sense, Kojic mentioned the invention is industrially scalable.

The important barrier to the utilization of the complete potential of nanotechnology has at all times been the shortcoming to economically manufacture nanoparticles in enough portions. Nanom’s technique permits for mass manufacturing of nanoparticles produced by means of friction by transverse introduction of feedstock materials into alternating supersonic movement regimes in varied managed atmospheres. Controlling movement velocity, ambiance, repetitions, and after therapy permits the corporate to uniquely form the particle’s dimension and floor areas, leading to a bespoke nanostructure with distinctive properties. Nanom mentioned it may possibly convert micron-sized particles to nano-sized particles in excessive quantity.

This offers distinctive nanostructures that allow longer-lasting batteries with out altering something within the batteries’ manufacturing movement. By changing key supplies with nano-enhanced supplies, Nanom says it provides clients a aggressive benefit.

Structural batteries

Above: Structural Battery Boat Hull — The Magnea Prototype floated in Reykjavik Harbor.

Picture Credit score: Nanom

On prime of the opposite advantages, the corporate mentioned it may possibly construct the batteries into the supplies used to make merchandise, like automotive our bodies, airplane seats, boat hulls, and more.

A structural battery is one that can be utilized within the materials of a product by embedding the nanoparticles right into a construction. In a automotive, it’s a fast-charging battery that is secure to make use of, because it doesn’t explode on impression. It additionally permits engineers to decentralize an influence supply.

Even a wall in your own home can turn out to be an enormous, secure battery that takes you off the grid.

Above: Nanom could make structural batteries out of issues just like the facet of a automotive.

Picture Credit score: Nanom

Nanom permits any construction or floor to turn out to be a battery storage system. For instance, the corporate has already created a pilot undertaking during which an electrical boat was constructed such that the precise hull of the boat grew to become the battery (15 meters of that kind of hull has the vitality storage capability of 5 Tesla automobiles). Any materials or construction Nanom turns right into a battery is totally strong, makes use of no dangerous chemical compounds, is inexperienced for the planet, and doesn’t explode upon impression (as Lithium-Ion batteries have a distressing tendency to do).

And Nanom doesn’t should persuade clients to go along with a distinct materials.

“You’ll be able to take present applied sciences and get more out of them so that we don’t deplete the atmosphere of uncooked supplies,” he mentioned. “We will create these excessive floor space nanoparticles that are tremendous related to the battery business. You can also make batteries with a decrease price per kilowatt-hour than you are able to do in any other case.”

The corporate

Above: Nanom CTO Antonijo Licitar and CFO Stuart Bronson exterior the Nanom places of work at Iceland Science Park.

Picture Credit score: Nanom

Kojic was born in Iceland and moved to the San Francisco Bay Space to affix the StartX mentor labs incubator at Stanford College. He fell in love with the area and met his spouse within the Bay Space. As he constructed the corporate, he additionally had a neater time discovering buyers within the area than he would have again residence.

Nanom has utilized for patents on the tech. The corporate has 17 individuals working in Palo Alto and Reykjavik, Iceland and has raised $three million up to now. The staff have labored at corporations together with Decode, Maersk, and Whole S.A. Backers embrace Village World, Iceland Enterprise Studio, Perkins Coie, and the European Union’s Inexperienced Deal undertaking.

The EU Inexperienced Deal is a really formidable motion plan with the goal of creating Europe carbon-neutral by 2050. The Nanom Greenvolt undertaking was chosen as an EU Inexperienced Deal know-how, which got here with Inexperienced Deal funding.

Kojic mentioned the corporate will disclose more in just a few months when it publicizes its companions. The identify “Nanom” combines the phrases “nano” and “om,” and it displays the corporate’s imaginative and prescient of utilizing the ability of nano, or matter, to impression the universe, or om, the whole thing of the universe, reality, and data.