Bipolar battery firm Gridtential Energy has welcomed lead battery technology scientist and expert Tim Ellis to its technical advisory board.
Ellis will advise on the rollout of Gridtential’s Silicon Joule battery technology, which replaces lead grids with silicon wafers, as it approaches commercial production with manufacturing partners.
Last month, Gridtential Energy signed a formal evaluation agreement with Luminous Power Technologies — a subsidiary of Schneider Electric— regarding the former’s 6V and 24V Silicon Joule reference batteries, for the latter to build prototype batteries using Gridential’s development kits.
Lead battery champion
As president of RSR Technologies— the R&D unit of EcoBat Technologies— Ellis championed initiatives to improve lead batteries for more than 14 years.
Most recently he was chief technology officer at Ecobat Battery Technologies, before stating he is “semi-retired” on his LinkedIn profile.
As chair of the Consortium for Battery Innovation, he led a US-based initiative to perform research on lead-based energy storage technologies.
Dr. Ellis is an author of dozens of scientific papers covering a wide range of disciplines such as metallurgy, semiconductor packaging technology, lead-acid battery materials, energy storage, and recycling.
He holds more than 20 US patents.
Ellis said: “If we’re to decarbonise the economy, we need a way to efficiently produce millions of long-lasting, high-power batteries.
“Lead batteries offer the scale: they are low-cost, highly recyclable and can be produced in today’s battery factories. With Silicon Joule technology, they are lighter and more powerful.
“Silicon Joule will unlock new applications for lead batteries and accelerate the shift to renewable energy.”
John Barton, CEO of Gridtential, said: “Tim has been driving innovation in the lead battery industry for more than a decade and it’s a real coup to have him join our team. His unique combination of experience in semiconductor and lead battery materials is the perfect match for Gridtential as we partner with battery manufacturers to bring Silicon Joule to market.”
