Battery Technology in Electric Vehicles – Matt Kappers and Michelle Tokarz, The Coretec Group

This is texturung TV. I'm Bonnie Schneider for Tech strong TV. And today we're talking about electric vehicles.

They've certainly become increasingly popular as a means of transportation with Battery Technology being the driving force behind the success of EVS. Well, it's a critical area of focus for innovators and experts alike today. I'm joined by two Executives from the cortex group CEO, Matt kappers and VP of partnership and Innovation Michelle to cars to discuss the exciting Innovations happening in the EV battery industry.

Welcome to both of you and thanks for joining us. Hi Bonnie, it's a pleasure to be with you. Thanks for having us great.

Well, Matt, can you tell us a little more about the core Tech group and its mission in the EV battery industry. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you and thank you for this opportunity.

The core Tech group our team. We're experts and Engineering silicon, and we're using our expertise to develop a silicon anode for for the EV battery Market. We call it the endurion.

It's the enduring battery, you know silicon has some really unique properties that that Michelle will speak to but you know with with Battery Technology, the emphasis recently has been on battery battery chemistry. I was in a conference over the fall at the automotive news conference in Nashville and all the major automakers were there in battery chemistry was the resounding theme throughout the throughout the conference and I thought maybe Michelle would you mind saying a little bit about the Properties of silicon. Yeah, so people have known about silicon for a while and silicon if you know EVS, you know, the main battery is a lithium ion battery.

Um, and so the ability to hold lithium ions is what's important to the battery performance silicon can hold 10 times the amount of lithium as current graphite anodes and yet silicon still for the most part is not found very readily in most Lithium-ion batteries. So we're hoping to tweak we're probably make our unique silicon form that you allows you to increase the performance of the battery. Can you talk Michelle a little bit more about that technology and how you're looking to advance it within the industry?

Yeah, so it comes down to energy density charge time and cycle life. Those are the three main components people want in their vehicles. So we are using a proprietary silicon-based anode with a modification of the surface.

So the way the lithium ions interact with the nanoparticles is what contributes to the energy density the charge time in the cycle life. That's what we're hoping to affect. Yeah and Bonnie the the Evie industry.

You know, what would Michelle speaking to you know with energy density what that means is how how far the EV can travel, you know the right if you can increase energy density, you know instead of going a 300 mile range. If you can get a 450 mile range that's a game changer for the EV industry. That's a great point, you know in along the same lines that also could potentially make the battery lighter and weight is a big factor.

with EVS And then yeah, I was just gonna ask you for the driver. You know, that that's something I think you're bringing home to a lot of people that have electric vehicles. They want to know how far they can go how long the battery lasts so you can you explain a little bit more how that might affect an everyday driver with these potential changes in the battery life.

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean just just the whole idea of being able to go on a trip, you know, you being able to go on a 400 mile trip versus a 200 mile trip without having to stop to charge and one of the other advantages was silicon is it could potentially enable the battery to charge faster.

So, you know, you know the government just passed the big infrastructure Bill about adding charging stations. Well, if you can charge your battery a little faster that's gonna open up more charging stations. So it's a good yeah.

This silicon silicon is is really the next Frontier and Battery development if anything about range, you know and until the Charging infrastructure gets a little bit more developed being assured that you could drive farther is going to help that situation. That's true. And also as as you both mention, you know the shorter time actually to sit there and be charging.

That's also another game changer Michelle. I want to take a deeper dive into the minerals that are this is something that's talked a lot about with how do we Supply battery power? And how do we do it sustainably minerals that are abundant and some parts of the world are not abundant in others.

Can you talk more about that and and kind of the just give some folks background on what goes into figuring out what works and what doesn't with electric vehicles and comes of batteries well, and you know something Matt mentioned very very beginning is a lot of people look at the battery chemistry. There's the architecture there's the physical structure but the actual chemistry is what's involved in making a better performs better and chemistry. We're mainly talking about the electrodes so I don't know the cathode and it's simply a matter of what are the electrons made of most cathodes are made of some combination of lithium nickel.

Manganese Cobalt iron all available in the Earth's crust and those are mainly made of graphite. We're adding small amounts of silicon. So those are the key minerals, you know, but I will say to your question about availability of minerals.

It's kind of a mining question and kind of early more Upstream, but I mean, yeah. Yeah, that's a little further Upstream in the in the OR Downstream in the supply chain, but so far we haven't had any problems with that. That that's interesting and Matt when you're doing this entire process to create something that's for sustainability.

How do you do that? While also being sustainable? Can you talk about some of the implementations that your company is doing to keep the process of sustainable as possible?

Sure. Sure. And you know we're working at a very small level we call it the nanoparticle level but we use a lot of reagents and solvents and it's important to use, you know, eco-friendly solvents because you can take some shortcuts.

But if you use some some really dangerous substances, you have to be you have to be very careful, but I think you know in general Bonnie if you take us if you take a step back, you know, the the advancements and battery will lead to a more adoption of electric vehicles and electrification in general which will help decarbonize the planet. So that's more our mission is to is to create a better battery and increase adoption of electric vehicles, you know in Bonnie you had mentioned, you know, Driver experience, you know if if you can be assured of being able to recharge your battery in the same five or ten minutes that it takes people develop their gas tank right now. That's what's going to further Evie adoption and will further electrification.

That's a great point and and Matt in terms of the EV industry in general. Where do you think that your solution fits in and where do you feel the future is moving towards with this greater demand as you mentioned some of the new legislation that will that's giving more opportunities for EVS. And I think more people are definitely moving in that direction.

But where do you see your solution fitting in to the present situation and moving forward? Yeah. I think the next step for the cortex group in the enduring battery is the partner with a with a major automotive company or major battery company, you know at that point they can they can Propel us up into the next level, you know for currently.

We're just working on the anode which is one of three or four parts of a battery, but that's that's frankly. That's the area that we think we can deliver the greatest performance. So that's that's the next step in the evolution of our company.

It's really a FAS. Cinating you've been working on this process for both of you. Is this is this something that's personal passion of yours in terms of sustainability and creating these new Innovations in that area.

Oh, absolutely. Yes, and and you know Bonnie one thing that you know, we're an Ann Arbor Michigan and you know next to University of Michigan and and that the whole environment here is is really incredible about supporting the the environmental in the the clean tech I guess is the buzzword now the clean tech industry and then we're also very fortunate to be right down the road from Detroit which is you know, the epicenter of Automotive development. Yeah.

And what about you Michelle? Yeah, well the endurion project is about a year old we've been working on it. And yeah, this is one of the ideal places in the area to be working on Innovations in general.

Another thing. You know, Matt didn't mention was University of Michigan is in our backyard. We just spent a week at their battery lab music and their equipment in their expertise.

So it's it's an exciting time to be in in batteries. There's a lot going on. That sounds like you're both in the right place at the right time and Bonnie.

We're really proud of our team. We've got to we've got a really brilliant group of research scientists that have have deep silicon and Battery experience. So it's really fun to bring them all together and and make something really really cool and innovative.

Well, thank you. Both. It's been a very interesting conversation with Matt cappers of and Michelle chokers both of the quartet group learning more about chemistry and EV batteries and Innovations in that area.

Really? Appreciate your time today here on techstrong TV. Thank you both so much.

Thank you. Thanks Bonnie. All right, we'll have a great day.

We're going to be right back with more stay with us.