Date: Dec 30, 2017 Author: Bridgett Weaver Source: bizjournals (
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Harut Vardanyan is the CEO of Hexalayer, a Louisville startup that's working to commercialize an advanced material to improve lithium ion battery life.
Most of us don't give much thought to what's inside our batteries, but Louisville residents Tereza Paronyan and Harut Vardanyan think about it every day.
The mother-son pair launched Hexalayer LLC earlier this year. The business revolves around the insides of batteries and, more specifically, an advanced material that Paronyan invented.
She and Vardanyan say the advanced material, called IML Graphene, will increase the life of a lithium ion battery by as much as 600 percent.
To understand what Hexalayer is up to, you might need a quick primer on li-ion batteries:
* Li-Ion batteries are the rechargeable batteries used in our phones, electric cars and many other places.
* The batteries consist of three main pieces: the anode (graphite), which carries the positive current into the battery; the electrolyte (lithium), or the power source; and the cathode, which carries the negative current out of the battery (this component differs, depending on the manufacturer).
* Graphite, the "anode" piece of a li-ion battery, stores the lithium, which powers the battery. It has been used in battery production pretty much exclusively since the early '90s, Vardanyan said.
Paronyan, through her own scientific research and lab testing with University of Louisville, created a multi-layer graphene, an advanced material that can replace graphite in batteries. Now she and Vardanyan are working to commercialize IML graphene. Paronyan is the chief scientific officer of Hexalayer, and Vardanyan is its CEO.
"It's designed on a molecular level in a way that allows far more lithium storage (in batteries) than previously commercially used materials," Vardanyan said.
Hexalayer isn't building new batteries. Vardanyan and Paronyan hope to mass-produce IML graphene and sell it to battery manufacturers, which could use it to replace the graphite anode.
"We're not reinventing the battery," Vardanyan said. "We're replacing one carbon powder with another carbon powder that goes into the same production chain."
Graphene always has existed as a component in graphite, which also is the stuff in pencil lead. But the single-atom-thick material couldn't be separated from graphite until the mid-2000s. Two scientists who figured it out won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010, and their discovery led researchers to seek practical uses for graphene.
"The potential of graphene is very widely discussed, but the industry has not grown because of lack of real-life uses for this product," Vardanyan said. "We think that by addressing the battery application, this will actually drive the growth of the [graphene] market."
Hexalayer is focused on the use of IML graphene in electric car batteries.
Vardanyan said that the company already is working with a few car companies to test the material in batteries for electric cars.
Vardanyan estimates that an electric car that now goes about 335 miles on one charge (that's the national average) could travel more than 1,500 miles on one charge if it had a battery made with Hexalayer's graphene.
Vardanyan and his mother also are talking to the U.S. Department of Defense about using IML graphene to power an exoskeleton suit for special ops. The suit has earned itself the nickname of "iron man suits" because they resemble the superhero. Vardanyan said the DoD hasn't been able to find a battery strong enough to power it, but he thinks Hexalayer's graphene could solve that problem.
Vardanyan and Paronyan are Hexalayer's only employees, but they hope to hire more scientists and engineers soon to help with the process. They are seeking funding through the government and are open to private investment.
Vardanyan said they have invested about $200,000 of their own money so far.
Vardanyan said the material that Paronyan created is much more stable than those that other companies are creating. Most comparable materials make it through only a few charge/discharge cycles before they crash, Vardanyan said, but Hexalayer's product stays stable through at least 100 charges, according to their lab testing.
"This is why the industry is so interested in our technology, because of the stability," he said.
I know, 100 cycles doesn't sound like all that many charges. But when you consider that an electric car using a battery made with this will go more than 1,500 miles on one charge, Vardanyan said, it starts to seem more significant.
Vardanyan also said that, while they've had several offers to buy the rights to their graphene, they've chosen to build the business in Kentucky because of the state's low manufacturing costs and to bring it to market themselves.
But the company does face challenges. Graphene is much more expensive to make than graphite, which is a naturally occurring material.
He estimates that it costs about $1,300 to produce a gram of IML Graphene in the lab. But through bulk purchases and automation, he expects the company can lower the cost to be competitive with the price of graphite -- which goes for $5,000 to $20,000 a ton for battery-grade. But he expects that to require at least seven or eight years of research and development.
The need is out there. Vardanyan cited a Business Insider study conducted last year, which estimated that the graphite/graphene market will at least double in the next three years because of the increasing need for rechargeable batteries.
Vardanyan said about 100,000 tons of graphite anode would be shipped around the world this year, and the Business Insider study projects that figure will reach 250,000 tons by 2020.
And although the graphene market is fairly competitive, Vardanyan said the demand will likely outweigh the supply.
"Our estimate is that if we capture only 1 percent of the li-ion battery anode market, we'll have $1 billion in revenue in six years," Vardanyan said. "I'm taking it out of the lab and commercializing it."
Bridgett Weaver
Reporter
Louisville Business First
