Carbon nanotube surface enhancement technology improves battery energy density and doubles driving range

Although electric car batteries have made great progress, many technologies still have no way to trace their origins, except for examples such as the SVolt technology. For example, mass-produced carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are not something we have heard of in battery cells before. However, now an Israeli startup CENS says that this technology can increase energy density without using cobalt materials, thereby achieving twice the range.

This technology does not use any changes in chemical materials, only changes in the structure of the battery cell. Carbon nanotubes can improve conductivity, but they are expensive, which increases the price of the battery. However, CENS said that this is not a problem. They have successfully applied carbon nanotubes to batteries. The carbon nanotubes used are less than one percent, but they are enough to increase their surface area by 3-6 times. At the same time, the amount of carbon nanotubes used is small, and the cost of battery production remains at a feasible level.

This surface enhancement technology increases the energy density of the battery and significantly improves the ionic conductivity, which has the same effect as the cobalt material used in the battery. In other words, this technology can no longer use cobalt materials and has a longer driving range. According to CENS, the driving range can be doubled and fast charging can be achieved more easily because it performs better at high currents.

CENS claims to be able to provide an industrialized production process that combines specialized CNTs with battery structures of any chemical nature, and does not require much additional work to be applied to any battery assembly line. However, CENS recently received investment to build a semi-industrial plant to supply batteries to OEMs. "Our ultimate goal is not to be a supplier of lithium-ion batteries, but at this stage, we want to manufacture enhanced raw materials and enhanced high-quality batteries to show customers and strategic partners the performance of the battery and the potential of our technology." CENS CEO Michael Bromfman said.

CENS's production process is done with gas, which means there is no risk of liquid residues contaminating the battery cells. However, it cannot prevent the formation of dendrites in lithium-ion batteries. In addition, in theory, the service life of such batteries will be as long as current batteries, but because the increased range will allow electric vehicles to travel the same mileage with fewer charges, the same battery pack will get a longer range even if the battery capacity decay is the same as the current battery.

CENS has contacted major battery suppliers and automakers to seek further cooperation opportunities. We hope they will keep an open mind as we begin to offer this promising technology and promote large-scale applications in the future.