A Japanese company claims their new battery is in every way better than lithium-ion ones. (Credit: Power Japan Plus)Power Japan Plus last week launched a new battery technology—the Ryden dual carbon battery. The company claims that this new battery offers energy density comparable to a lithium ion battery, but over a much longer functional lifetime with drastically improved safety and cradle-to-cradle sustainability.
According to the company’s press-release, the Ryden battery makes use of a completely unique chemistry, with both the anode and the cathode made of carbon. Unfortunately, the available descriptions of this chemistry are not too detailed, possibly due to patent issues. The company describes its new battery as follows:
The Ryden dual carbon battery, developed by Power Japan Plus, is a new, more sustainable, safer, longer-lasting and cost-effective battery technology. This high performance battery makes use of a completely unique chemistry, with both the anode and the cathode made of simple carbon. It also contains no metals, rare earth metals and no heavy metals, which is part of what makes it both cost competitive and sustainable.
The dual carbon design used in the battery, combined with an organic electrolyte, allows for a unique current flow within the battery. Positively charged lithium ions flow to the anode and the negatively charged anions flow to the cathode. This shortens the distance of current flow within the battery,allowing for faster charge and discharge.
Power Japan Plus has filed one patent and is preparing to file three more on the dual carbon battery.
Power Japan Plus also lists the following advantages of their new Ryden dual carbon battery:
- High Performance—the battery is energy dense and charges 20 times faster than lithium ion batteries. It is also more powerful than other advanced batteries, operating above four volts.
- Cost Competitiveness—the battery slots directly into existing manufacturing processes, requiring no change to existing manufacturing lines. Even more, the battery allows for consolidation of the supply chain, with only one active material—carbon. Additionally, manufacturing of the Ryden battery is under no threat of supply disruption or price spikes from rare metals, rare earth or heavy metals.
- Reliability—this is the first ever high performance battery that meets consumer lifecycle demand, rated for more than 3,000 charge/discharge cycles.
- Safety—the Ryden battery eliminates the unstable active material used in other high performance batteries, greatly reducing fire and explosion hazard. Even more, the battery experiences minimal thermal change during operation, eliminating the threat of a thermal runaway. Finally, the Ryden battery can be 100 percent charged and discharged with no damage to the battery.
- Sustainability—the battery contains no rare metals, rare earth metals or heavy metals, and is 100 percent recyclable, vastly improving the cradle-to-cradle sustainability of an advanced battery. Even further, Power Japan Plus is testing the Ryden battery with its organic Carbon Complex material, working towards the goal of producing the battery with all organic carbon in the future.
“Current advanced batteries have made great improvement on performance, but have done so by compromising on cost, reliability and safety,” said Dr. Kaname Takeya, CTO of Power Japan Plus. “The Ryden dual carbon battery balances this equation, excelling in each category.”
Power Japan Plus will begin benchmark production of 18650 Ryden cells later this year at the company’s production facility in Okinawa, Japan. This facility will allow the company to meet demand for specialty energy storage markets such as medical devices and satellites. For larger demand industries, such as electric vehicles, Power Japan Plus will operate under a licensing business model, providing technology and expertise to existing battery manufacturers to produce the Ryden battery.
