The newly founded production company Swiss Clean Battery AG from Switzerland is revolutionizing the global battery market with its serially produced solid-state battery. Swiss Clean Battery AG, headquartered in Frauenfeld, is convinced that it will leave the international competition behind with its environmentally friendly, safe and extremely powerful product.
The energy transition to renewable energies requires electricity storage, especially in view of the rapidly increasing electricity consumption and the exploding energy costs. However, conventional battery technologies create serious resource and waste problems. SCB AG is treading a new path with the production of a new and sustainable basic technology, the “green solid-state battery”.
Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized the battery world. But now that their production and use are soaring to astronomical heights, the dark side of this development is becoming apparent: Raw materials are needed whose long-term availability is not guaranteed and some of which are extracted under inhumane conditions. There are safety risks, as the batteries can lead to fires and explosions that are difficult to extinguish. And, above all, there will be a huge mountain of waste in the near future. This is because the lifespan of conventional lithium-ion batteries is very limited. They reach the end of their life after a few thousand charging cycles at the latest.
The solid-state battery produced by SCB lasts almost indefinitely and has a 50% better environmental balance than conventional lithium-ion batteries. Furthermore, it is incombustible and therefore safe to use, contains no critical raw materials such as cobalt, and is resistant to deep discharge and fast charging.
Solid-state batteries have been regarded for years as a promising successor technology to conventional lithium-ion batteries. Accordingly, they are the subject of research in numerous laboratories around the world. So far, however, it has not been possible to develop high-performance batteries with solid ion conductors:
A central technical problem is to bring the fixed ion conductor in the battery cells into a stable connection with the electrodes. Many research projects are based on a “modular design” in which individual components are combined outside the cell and then inserted into the housing. This leads to problems with the transfer of ions at the material boundaries between the electrodes and the fixed ion conductor. After more than 30 years of basic research, it has been possible to solve this problem: In this new approach to solving the problem, the fixed ion conductor is formed in the battery cell itself, similar to a multicomponent adhesive. This overcomes the transition problemscompared to modular construction.
Swiss Clean Battery AG was founded in February 2022 in Frauenfeld in the canton of Thurgau. The CEO is Mr. Roland Jung, the CFO Mr. Peter Koch and the COO Dr. Thomas Lützenrath. He is also the COO of High Performance Battery AG, the licensing technology company. The production facility will be scaled from 1.2 GWH to 7.6 GWH.