Akshay Singhal, the 25-year-old co-founder and CEO of nanotechnology start-up Log 9 Materials is conducting trials on his electric car Mahindra e2o Plus to run on water and aluminium. This, according to him can be made possible by using an innovative metal-air battery, developed by Log 9 in the EV.
Log 9 is an IIT Roorkee spin-off and the company is using the wonder material ‘graphene’ to make the metal-air batteries commercially viable and affordable for EVs and other stationary applications like power backup products.
In an interview, Mr. Singhal said that the issue with traditional lithium-ion batteries is that they stored energy rather than generating it. For instance, an e-vehicle has a mileage range of 100 km to 150 km, after which it has to be charged, which will again take about five hours.
The company aims to do away with the requirement to charge e-vehicles. Instead of that, his battery technology will “refuel them just like gasoline, but with water.” Log 9 said the initial cost of its battery was almost half of that of the lithium-ion battery. The battery will refuel with water and aluminium, which would give a range of 1,000 km.
The material ‘graphene’, according to Log 9 is 200 times stronger than steel and one million times thinner than paper and forms graphite or pencil lead when stacked together. According to Log 9, its battery enables the car to run on a simple fuel cell technology that uses electrochemical reaction to produce electricity from water and aluminium. There is a ‘graphene rod’ along the aluminium plate that generates electricity with water as its base for the chemical reaction. The electricity thus generated is sent to an electric motor that drives the car.
Investors have so far invested $1 million in the firm.
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