TIAX’s Advanced Battery Materials & Design Division has become a separate company, CAMX Power LLC, to be co-located with TIAX and operating as its subsidiary, according to a statement from Dr. Kenan Sahin, president and founder of TIAX LLC.
CAMX Power will focus on licensing, customer support, and further enhancing its high energy and high power cathode material, CAM-7™ for lithium-ion batteries. It will continue the development of other cell components and expand its work on battery safety technologies. CAMX Power will also engage in targeted services, co-development and sales and marketing partnerships.
The company says it will be one of the largest independent lithium-ion battery materials and design entities in the US. Its extensive and modern end-to-end development facilities include powder production ranging in scale from kilograms to tons, materials properties characterization, electrochemical characterization in coin cells and in full-sized multi-Ah cells fabricated in its state-of-the-art cell prototyping facility, and safety technology development. Its multi-disciplinary staff brings together deep experience and expertise in the development, scale-up, and technical marketing of advanced battery technologies.
“Electrification of light duty vehicles has been a passion and a cause for me,” said Dr. Sahin. “Since the founding of TIAX in 2002, I have dedicated my time, energies and financial resources to the realisation of this objective, the key to which is a low-cost lithium-ion battery that has a range of 200 miles, and the key to which is the cathode material. If we are to effectively deal with CO2 emissions to protect our environment, we need to move CO2 from the tailpipes of vehicles to the smokestacks of power plants where it is possible to capture and contain CO2 emissions. That can only be done with the electrification of the drivetrain.”
“CAM-7 offers the highest energy and power density at the cell-level for lithium-ion batteries compared to all materials available today,” said Dr. Suresh Sriramulu, the Company’s CTO. “Lithium-ion batteries with CAM-7 can be smaller, lighter and cheaper than today’s batteries. Backed by a strong intellectual property portfolio, CAM-7 represents a platform technology with significant head-room for continued enhancement and customization for different applications.”
“The portable power markets are growing rapidly, and the demand for electric and hybrid cars is poised to expand dramatically with almost every car producer now having a line of electric or plug-in hybrids. The shift to high-energy cells is occurring. By 2020 the size of the market for cathode materials is expected to exceed six billion dollars,” added Dr. Brian Barnett, Vice President of Marketing and Customer Relations. He further said: “Since there are only a few chemistries available, and since the development cycles of new materials are measured in a decade or more, we feel CAM-7 will take its rightful place as the material of choice for lithium-ion batteries.”
CAM-7 has been scaled up to two metric tons per year in an in-house facility and then up to 50 metric tons per year in a modular plant located in Rowley, MA, further expandable to 300 metric tons.
Boyd Bucher, COO, added: “Existing cathode plants in the US and elsewhere can produce CAM-7 with minimal adaptation, as we have demonstrated in our own plant.”