Jon Hykawy: Vanadium Boost Would Give Batteries More Juice

Jon Hykawy: There really isn't as far as batteries go. You can produce batteries that contain nickel-metal-hydrides. You can produce batteries that contain lead and acid. You can produce batteries made from alkaline materials. But they're not lithium-ion batteries at that point. If you want to produce something with high voltage, high specific energy and high power output, you need to use lithium. There really isn't another option.

TGR: And those are the main advantages of lithium-based batteries: high voltage and the fact that they maintain their power for a longer period of time.

Follow us

JH: That's what makes them attractive to the automotive market. There was a documentary made a few years ago entitled, Who Killed The Electric Car? Electric cars failed previously not because anybody went out and made a concerted effort to bump off the electric car. The technology just wasn't there at the time. Now, you need only look at a Nissan LEAF. I've driven one. It's an extremely good car. It's not a good electric car. It's a good car. . .period.

TGR: And for the LEAF and other cars like it, carmakers are looking at powering them with lithium-vanadium batteries. You talked about those at the Forbes & Manhattan Conference in November. Where are lithium-vanadium batteries at now?

JH: A number of companies are doing commercial work on them. China's BYD Company Ltd. (OTCBB:BYDDF) and Valence Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:VLNC) in the U.S. are some examples. Subaru has been doing work on an automotive version for a significant period of time now. The real advantage that lithium-vanadium batteries have over lithium-cobalt batteries, the standard sort of chemistry you have in your laptop, is that lithium-vanadium batteries are very, very good at producing power and producing it safely. The typical battery that's in the Chevrolet Volt or the Nissan LEAF is a manganese-oxide battery and those are inherently safe, as well. You don't have the problem of these batteries catching fire that you had with some of the older chemistries.

TGR: So what is the problem?

JH: Where you have a problem with the batteries in the Volt or Leaf is with power production. They're lower-voltage batteries. They're around 3.2 or 3.3 volts, and they're what are called '10C' batteries. An amp hour-rated battery can kick out 10 amps or charge at 10 amps all day and night without overheating or becoming damaged. At 10 amps of current and 3.2 or 3.3 volts, you're looking at a 33-watt cell. That's a reasonable amount of power, but it's not outrageous.

If you look at a lithium-vanadium phosphate battery, it's a 4.2-volt cell, but the battery itself is a 50C battery. That means the same amp hour-rated battery can kick out 50 amps of current for as long as it lasts. The advantage here is that it's 50 amps of current times 4.2 volts. That's 210 watts of power as opposed to 33 watts.

You've got a lithium-ion battery in both cases, but because of the addition of vanadium to the cathode in that battery, you've got something that can produce more than six times the power. Obviously, power is important and the most important thing in a hybrid car application. It's important in terms of being able to charge the battery more quickly and get the driver back on to the road more quickly. But it's also important to power utilities. A lot of utilities are looking to use lithium batteries as a backup to some of their substations during peak periods. They want a battery that produces power inexpensively. Frankly, lithium-vanadium batteries at six times the power rating of some of their automotive cousins are a very inexpensive method of producing power.

TGR: Producing power or storing power?

JH: Well, storing it and then kicking it out when the utility demands it.