Mac Engineering & Equipment

World’s first all-solid-state battery in production vehicles - Innovation or Snake Oil?

Donut Solid State Battery

After over 51 years in the lead acid battery industry, I have always been intrigued in the new battery technology coming out that will compete with the Lithium ion batteries today that are expensive and dangerous to both the environment and operator.

There is a company by the name of Donut Lab that is making “out of this world” claims.  They have developed batteries for production vehicles with the following claims:

  • 400 Wh/kg of energy density enabling longer range, lighter structures.
  • Fast charge in as little as 5 minutes. Charge to 100%. Discharge to 0%. With a Long range version of 600 km (373 miles) on one 10 minutes charge.
  • Designed for extreme lifetime. Built for daily fast charging and continuous use – Claiming over 100,000 cycles.
  • No flammable liquid electrolytes. Operates safely in extreme 100°C heat and -30°C cold retaining over 99% of its rated capacity. No thermal runaway chains
  • No metallic dendrites that can cause internal shorts
  • Lower cost than lithium ion. Designed for scalable production across all applications. 
  • Donut Battery is designed 100% green and abundant materials with global availability No reliance on rare or geopolitically sensitive resources

 

All this being said it sounds too good to be true.  The first independent test of the Donut Solid State Battery, conducted by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland reported their findings in this article, Donut Lab commissioned VTT to carry out battery measurements to support its product development. More data being added weekly.  

From what I am understanding from a combination of research sites looking into this proprietary technology and trying to reverse engineer it, it appears that it is based on Nano Printing Technology from Nordic Nano Group. Using carbon nanotubes and screen printing techniques similar to the basic concepts shown below could be used.  

Solid State Battery Production Line

Basic Concept of Solid State Battery Line

Battery Structure

Credit to GoElectric Industry for above graphics

So all this being said, this will be a technology to keep an eye on. If the announcement is true, the world will be dramatically changed with this battery. Be assured that MAC Engineering will be watching for the opportunity to partner with a Battery Manufacturer to make the equipment to bring this technology to production. – Jimmy Stewart