Joulenova
- Pre-Seed
- Energy
- Industry
Hwamyung Jang, PhD
CTO & Co-Founder
A New Way to Manufacture Batteries
For over 30 years, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries have dominated the battery market due to their high energy density and reliable performance. While incremental advancements have improved energy and power density, the core design and manufacturing processes of Li-ion batteries remain largely unchanged since their inception. Current manufacturing is highly energy-intensive, involves complex process steps, carbon-intensive, and dependent on specialised labor. Joulenova developed a novel Li-ion battery manufacturing platform that: ~30% lower cell costs per kWh, 70% fewer GHG emissions, 30% higher energy density, and half the CAPEX and manufacturing footprint.
Investors
- Marble
Problem
While Europe and North America were instrumental in developing the modern lithium-ion battery, they gave up their edge on manufacturing them. Since the early 2000s, China, and to a lesser extent Japan and Korea, have invested heavily to build and support a vibrant battery manufacturing industry.
Creating battery manufacturing is a strategic imperative for European and North American governments, as it is a key enabler for innovation across electrified industries. But Western battery companies neither have the manufacturing know-how to make cost-competitive batteries nor the financial tailwinds to build profitable ventures in the sector. With incumbent manufacturing technologies, Western efforts will simply not be able to catch up with the sophisticated battery manufacturing industry in Asia.
Solution
We believe Europe and North America will need a new, completely orthogonal battery manufacturing process to enable rapid down-costing and achieve cost competitiveness with Asian manufacturers. To do this, Joulenova reimagined the Li-ion battery cell design from the ground up to usher in a simplified manufacturing process. Their battery cell can be manufactured in 50% fewer steps than conventional batteries with factories that are a 1/3 the price (i.e., CapEx) of incumbent Chinese giga-factories.
Not only is the manufacturing process cheaper, but the battery cell Joulenova can deliver is compatible with any battery chemistry, increases energy density by 30%, and achieves comparable safety and lifetime to incumbent cell designs.
Their optimized cell has more active material and a less complex design to
produce a more energy-dense battery. The cell design is chemistry agnostic, compatible with incumbent chemistries (LFP & NMC), and emergent chemistries.
Finally, Joulenova cells are the only battery cells to date that can be recycled at end-of-life without any hydrometallurgical or pyrometallurgical process. By deploying our cells in Europe, we will create the framework for a robust, sovereign battery chemistry supply chain.
