The trial conducted by 25-year-old Akshay Singhal on his electric car Mahindra e2o Plus to run on water and aluminium had done several round ups on the internet last year, and now its receipt of a $3.5 million funding is drawing attention. The news came on Monday, October 21, when the company Log 9 Materials announced that it received the funding in Series A round led by Exfinity Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital India’s accelerator programme Surge.
According to the report, this funding will be used for product development, and commercial and industrial deployment of aluminium fuel cell, which the company has been working on since last year.
Aluminium fuel cells are aluminium-air batteries that produce electricity from oxygen and aluminium reaction, and the technology used is similar to that of the hydrogen fuel cell but more economical, safer, and scalable. The initial cost of the battery is almost half of the lithium-ion battery.
In an interview, Mr. Singhal, co-founder and CEO of the start-up, had said that the company aimed 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.”
“The ultimate objective is to transition towards an aluminium-based cleaner energy economy that will shift our dependence from crude oil and fossil fuels for energy generation and storage,” said Singhal, in a press release.
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. The launch of the product is expected to be in the next 18 to 24 months for both domestic and international markets.
Anandamoy Roychowdhary, director of technology at Sequoia Capital India, added, “Their tech can help us harness aluminium and will result in a 100% recyclable energy future that is safe, free of distribution calamities risk and generates zero waste – and hence fully sustainable.”
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