US technology company Wildcat Discovery Technologies has been granted three patents for nickel manganese cobalt cathode components.
The patents were awarded from the US Patent and Trademark Office for its groundbreaking copper fluoride cathode Wildcat calls “CM4”.
The San Diego-based firm’s CM4 rechargeable copper fluoride conversion electrode material has the potential to double the energy of today’s NMC based cells and 50% more energy than next generation lithium-rich NMC-Si based cells.
Wildcat developed synergistic electrolyte formulations for CM4 that have enabled it to successfully demonstrate >320 mAh/g capacity and excellent capacity retention for dozens of cycles at 4.6V.
Under these conditions, CM4 has the potential to reach over 500 mAh/g.
Dr. Dee Strand, Wildcat’s chief scientific officer, said: “We’ve made a tremendous breakthrough in successfully getting copper fluoride to recharge at all, but we still need an improvement in cycle life for CM4 to be used in its first commercial application.
“Therefore, we’re conducting synchrotron work at Argonne National Lab now to better understand the structure of the material and its failure mechanisms.”
Wildcat is interested in licensing intellectual property rights of CM4 or partnering with industry to further develop the technology for specific customer applications via joint development agreements.
