Industry Electronics Website aquionenergy.com | Headquarters Lawrenceville | |
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Key people CEO Scott Pearson
CTO Jay Whitacre Products Aqueous Hybrid Ion (AHI) battery | ||
Aquion energy salt water batteries
Aquion Energy is a Pittsburgh-based company that manufactures sodium ion batteries (salt water batteries) and electricity storage systems.
Contents
- Aquion energy salt water batteries
- Aquion energy saltwater battery module 48vdc for solar energy storage
- History
- Technology
- Production
- References
The company claims to provide a low-cost way to store large amounts of energy (e.g. for an electricity grid) through thousands of battery cycles, and a non-toxic end product made from widely available material inputs and which operates safely and reliably across a wide range of temperatures and operating environments.
Aquion energy saltwater battery module 48vdc for solar energy storage
History
The company was founded in 2008 by Jay F. Whitacre, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and Ted Wiley. They set up research and development offices in Lawrenceville, where it produced pilot-stage batteries. Whitacre received a BA in physics from Oberlin College and a PhD in materials science from the University of Michigan. He held positions at California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, studying energy-related topics ranging from fundamental materials function to systems engineering. In 2007 he accepted a professorship at Carnegie Mellon.
The company raised funding from Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Bill Gates, Nick and Jobey Pritzker, Bright Capital and Advanced Technology Ventures, among others.
In 2011, an individual battery stack was promoted to store 1.5 kWh, a pallet-sized unit 180 kWh. The battery cannot overheat. The company expected its products to last many charge/discharge cycles, twice as long as a lead-acid battery. Costs were claimed to be about the same as with lead-acid.
In October 2014 they announced a new generation with a single stack reaching 2.4 kWh and a multi-stack module holding 25.5 kWh.
In 2015, the company announced it would supply batteries for a Hawaii microgrid to serve as backup for a 176-kilowatt solar panel array that would store 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. In April 2015 they announced they have been cradle-to-cradle design certified. It was also reported they were reducing headcount.
In September 2015 Whitacre won the Lemelson–MIT Prize
Technology
The battery materials are non-toxic. As of early 2014 the cathode used manganese oxide and relies on intercalation reactions. The anode was a titanium phosphate (NaTi2(PO4)3). The electrolyte was <5M NaClO4. A synthetic cotton separator was reported. The electrode layers were unusually thick (>2 mm), which reduces power density. The device used Siemens power inverter technology.
Production
The company set up manufacturing facilities at a former Sony television assembly plant in East Huntingdon, initially proposing a capacity of 500 megawatt-hours per year in 2013 and 2014. In March 2014 they announced that commercial shipments of batteries would begin in mid-2014, and in May 2014 announced they had shipped 100 units.