Australian renewable energy company Zero Emissions Developments (ZED) has developed the technology to build longer lasting, greener, more efficient, and more affordable solar and electric vehicle (EV) batteries.
The company is seeking $30 million in private investment to build a manufacturing plant that will produce PowerCap batteries in South-East Queensland through the entity PowerCap Un Ltd.
Unlike lithium-ion batteries which are made entirely from mined components, PowerCap batteries utilise recycled waste converted to graphitic carbon to create its anodes.
The company will use the waste garnered from its own recycling plant in Bowen, QLD to create the graphene like substance, making it a major recycler too.
At the end of its life the PowerCap battery is 100% recyclable – the same cannot be said for traditional Lithium-ion batteries.
This Australian developed, designed and – in the near future – manufactured new technology, is exactly the kind of energy breakthrough that the Australian Government is counting on to meet its pledge of zero emissions by 2050.
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 electrochemical 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 per cent 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.
PowerCap Un Ltd chief executive and principal engineer Ahmed El Safty is the visionary behind the new technology.
He and his team of post-doctorate researchers and engineers have been developing the PowerCap technology for more than a decade.
El Safty said: “We know this technology is going to help advance our ability to rely on solar energy and manufacture electric vehicles.
“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.”