Two nickels worth of battery power --- The Interview

Manhasset, NY— Following the introduction of the silver-zinc battery as if on cue, rechargeable nickel-zinc batteries are here to challenge nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal-hydride for high power-density applications. "We're focused on nickel-zinc for its inherent safety, non-toxicity, and power-density," says Dan Squiller, CEO of PowerGenix and the company behind the new battery.

PMDL: Last month, the silver-zinc battery arrived to challenge lithium-ions in the portable electronics market, and now you've just announced the nickel-zinc for power tools and small vehicles. What's happening? And do you see lithium-ion still in the game for some power applications?

DS: Contrary to popular belief, lithium-ion is not going to take over the world. The rechargeable battery market is huge, and it is segmented. There are clearly applications where lithium-ion is the best chemistry in the world when you look at performance and cost. But there are large segments where it is not, and it will not be. So the way to look at nickel-zinc is the next generation replacement for Ni-Cad and nickel-metal hydride.

And the advantage that nickel-zinc has over those two chemistries is simple to understand. Our voltage is 1.6 volts, and nickel-metal-hydride and Ni-Cad are 1.2 volts. So right out of the block, we have a more or less 30 percent energy-density advantage, and 30 percent power density advantage. On the energy-density advantage, NiCd is maybe at 50 W-h/kg, NiMH can get to maybe 60 W-h/kg, and NiZn is over 100 W-h/kg. Lithium-ion is 100 to 150, depending on the labor and cost. On the power-density side, NiCd and NiMH are between 800 to 1000 W/kg, lithium-ion is 1500 to 2600, and NiZn comes in at about 2400. So the message there is that on a power-density metric, NiZn is a very very strong performer compared to anything else on the market.

The cost per watt-hour is about 40 cents for NiZn. The NiCd can go anywhere from 25 to 50 cents, NiMH is maybe 45 cents to 70 cents. It's less than half the cost of lithium-ion. From a performance-cost point of view, that's the niche, there's a lot of white space between where lithium-ion starts to compete with where we and NiMH and NiCd are.

There's two other factors. With NiCd, there's toxicity and recyclability issues. We've been tested against all the RoHS metrics and our cell passes them with flying colors. So we are certifiably "Green." And when Toys 'R' Us and Mattel make announcements that they are not going to be buying any more NiCd cells because of toxicity issues, cadmium poisoning, that's a big deal. This whole "Green" movement is nothing but a tailwind for us and a headwind for NiCd. And NiMH, because of the cost difference between NiZn and the fact that it doesn't have as good a low-temperature performance and a few other metrics, NiZn compares very favorably there. And NiZn is a 100 percent safe chemistry because it has an aqueous electrolyte.

PMDL: So would you say what you're doing is kind of complementary to what silver-zinc is doing for the area it's covering (portables)?

DS: Absolutely. The way to look at it is silver-zinc is a competitor to lithium-ion. Silver-zinc is expensive, its strong point is energy-density, not power-density. We, on the other hand, target nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal hydride. We think our value proposition — cost, toxicity, performance — offers a tremendous difference and we'll see it in a few years.

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Sources: E-One Moli (Li-ion), EnerSys website (VRLA), Sanyo & BYD websites (NiCd and NiMH), PGX Testing (NiZn and A123)

PMDL: Where are we now (with respect to commercialization)?

DS: The first nickel-zinc battery was invented by Edison, and it actually powered an automobile. Then back before WW II, it powered some trains in Ireland. So the fundamental chemistry is pretty old. The problem is that it was never very economically viable and it had limited rechargability— 25 or 50 times. Back in the early '90s, Evercel brought a prismatic cell to market. But the company failed. Today, we are aware of some work being done in France on nickel-zinc, in fact we have a partnership with them for some military applications. But essentially we have no real competitors (in the rechargeable area). So we've been in this for about 10 years. Only since 2003, where the company was properly funded and a professional management team came in, we became a real company. So we've been at it seriously four to five years. We've got thousands of samples in the marketplace, we have high volume production in China.

That's a question you want to ask when you're talking to battery manufacturers. There's no shortage of people who claim they have a wonderful battery chemistry, (that they) are kind of in production. The question is "are you making thousands of cells a day?" And the answer for PowerGenix is, "yes we are."

We are going to be delivering cells for our first customer in late April, and that will be for a power tool application in Asia. And we will be signing an agreement with an electric scooter manufacturer here in March, and delivering D-cells at the end of the year. We will be signing an agreement with one of the largest distributors of consumer batteries for a rechargeable AA, which we think will be industry-changing. It'll have 100 percent compatibility with the throwaway Duracells and Energizers of the world.

If you think about why you don't have a rechargeable AA in your house, it's because the NiMH AA's don't work very well because they have 1.2 volts. You can't put them in flashlights, they don't work very well in electronic devices because they start out at a lower voltage and the power circuitry in the electronic devices will shut the device down sooner than it would with a 1.5 volt battery.

The AA that we have will be in high volume production in Q3, that product will be a blockbuster product. But for the sub-C, which is for power tools and lawn and garden equipment and some military applications, that product is in volume production in China.

PMDL: What about the D-cell for scooters? What's its capability?

DS: That's a 6.5 A-h cell, the first out of the gate. The electric scooters are 24 volts, and the batteries will be in two parallel strings. I believe it's a 30-volt pack.

PMDL: What about the improvement in rechargeability?

DS: At the cell level, our cells will typically cycle 500 times (80 percent capacity retention). But not too many applications use cells individually. So the question is, how does it do in a pack? Right now, our cycling is at 250 cycles. That meets the initial applications for all our target customers.