Uppsala, Sweden based Altris, which is working on a new tech to produce cheaper and environment-friendly Sodium-Ion batteries using renewable materials, has announced a fresh €9.6Mn (~USD 10.6 Mn) Series A round. The round was completed through a combination of new investors and existing investors continuing their participation, including the likes of Molindo Energy, Northvolt and EIT InnoEnergy.
Altris will use this capital to scale-up production for its innovative battery cathode material, Fennac to 2,000 tonnes, enabling 1 GWh of sustainable batteries. The capital would also go into additional research and development of sodium-ion batteries.
It is important to note though, that Altris is yet to produce these batteries for commercial usage.
‘With our new financial backing we stand ready to provide customers with the knowledge and materials they need to fulfil their sodium-ion battery aspirations, at a time where interest in this technology has never been greater’ says Adam Dahlquist, Altris CEO. ‘Our new industrial manufacturing unit will ensure that Fennac-based batteries become a reality within 2 years’.
Altris’ tech is pretty much an improvisation at a massive level, of existing materials available for battery making. The Swedish startup’s tech relies on ‘Fennac’ (aka ‘Prussian White’ in the battery industry), a framework material consisting of sodium, iron carbon and nitrogen. Altris claims to have developed a method to produce Fennac in a form that is ideal for use as a positive electrode material in sodium ion batteries. The utilization of the iron as a source of electrons and completely filling the material with sodium provides a theoretical capacity of 170 mAh/g and average voltage output of 3.2 V vs sodium.
The company sells Fennac to battery-cell producers, which can use existing lithium-ion manufacturing processes and equipment to produce Fennac-based batteries. This simple transition enables a smooth adaptation, a quick scale-up of sodium-ion battery production, and a fast market introduction.
