Ambri, the company working to bring the liquid metal battery to market, has opened its first manufacturing site in Marlborough, Massachusetts, US.
The plant will build prototype batteries as well as demonstrating the equipment and processes necessary to make the molten salt battery. The battery is made of magnesium and antimony as liquid electrodes and molten salt for the electrolyte heated to allow a current to allow a high pass current to pass through. A Professor at Michigan Institute of Technology, Donald Sadoway, who wanted to design a low cost battery for grid-scale storage, began the project.
Microsoft’s Bill Gates became a backer for the company after watching Sadoway’s lectures online.
The company does not intend to move to full-scale manufacturing until 2015, the new facility will demonstrate production of the battery at low capital costs and bring the concept closer to commercialisation.
