This Made-In-India Battery Will Let You Run Your Car On Air And Water

Imagine yourself filling your vehicle's fuel tanks with water while getting ready for your daily travel. Yes, no petrol, diesel, or CNG, just water. This might sound like a distant possibility but the sliver of hope here is an Indian nanotechnology startup that goes by the name of Log 9 Materials. And to achieve this, the team at Log 9 trusts graphene, the wondrous allotrope of Carbon.

Incubated at IIT Roorkee, Log 9 Material now counts 3 years of work on the numerous possible applications of graphene, since the company¡¯s inception back in December 2015. One such application brought the Log 9 team to batteries, batteries that have suddenly seen a splurge in their use, thanks to the mass adoption of electric vehicles around the globe.

That¡¯s right, the water powered vehicles we mentioned above are not the conventional IC engine ones but electric vehicles. You might wonder how ¡®water¡¯ and ¡®battery¡¯ go hand in hand. Believe it or not, the combination does work wonders for a battery, i.e. a specific type of battery known as metal-air battery.

Working

Now in case you are unaware of a term like that, here is a brief chemistry lesson for you. The metal air batteries use a metal as anode, air (oxygen) as cathode and water as an electrolyte. So you have understood the use of water here. But what about graphene?

A graphene rod is used in the air cathode of the batteries. Since Oxygen has to be used as the cathode, the cathode material has to be porous to let the air pass, a property in which graphene tops the list of elements. As per Akshay Singhal, co-founder Log 9 Materials, the graphene used in the electrode is able to increase the battery efficiency by five times at one-third the cost.

Log 9 Battery Composition (Log 9 Materials)

Impact

That¡¯s enough about the working. The natural follow up question is, how is the metal-air battery better?

The most immediate advantage of such a battery would be the eliminated need of recharging. Instead of the lithium-ion batteries that power most of the EVs (and gadgets alike), the metal-air batteries by Log 9 do not require any charging and instead, run on a refueling mechanism that only required water as the fuel. So every hundred kilometers, just top off your car with water and you are good to go.

On a global level, this would again reduce the dependence upon the limited elements such as Cobalt which are used majorly in the making of lithium ion batteries. It would also eliminate the need for gigantic investments in charging stations and other related infrastructure. This also means less of electricity requirement, which is again mostly generated through fossil fuels at the moment.

Challenges

Keep in mind that the proposal to use metal-air batteries for electric vehicles and other applications is not new or unique to the firm. Several companies have been working towards it and many others have shown interest in the concept, including Tesla, that currently rules the electric vehicle market share.

There are, however, several challenges that restrict the adoption of such batteries in vehicles. A major one of them is the irreversible loss in battery performance through corrosion. We reached out to the team at Log 9 Materials to find out how it is tackling this hindrance. As per Kartik Hajela (Co-Founder), the firm is relying upon the material competency to prevent corrosion in the prone parts. The firm also has an IP generated around the process.

He also mentioned how the team faced difficulties in driving power out of the batteries. Despite this, however, the team has managed to increase the power per cell by 4 to 5 times.

Kartik Hajela, Co- founder, VP, Log 9 materials

The way forward

Kartik mentions that the metal-air batteries and their product development cycle are currently being optimised to make them feasible for the market. The POC has been done for the same. The company aims to launch the product by 2020 for stationary purposes and begin the commercial prototyping around the same time for mobility applications.

As per him, the cost of the said batteries would be ¡°at par or cheaper¡± than the current batteries. This is a prediction though, based on the raw materials and process of making it. The cost will be cut down (if so) through the use of graphene.

To date, Log 9 Materials has already come up with a range of graphene based products like Log 9 Oil Sorbent, a filtration media and a Post-Purification Filter (PPuF) for smokers. Through these innovations, it has managed to garner seed investment from GEMS Micro-VC Fund and a Rs 3 crore pre-series A investment by various firms.