Blue Current: Advancing Solid-State Battery Innovation

Blue Current, Inc., an American battery developer in the all-solid-state battery (ASSB) industry, announced a series of technical achievements, expanded partner engagements, and funding. The company recognizes and is instead committed to delivering a complete chemistry system that will be safe, high energy, and scalable with the same high-volume manufacturing equipment used in the traditional lithium-ion (LIB) manufacturing industry. This will enable engineers to create thinner, lighter, and lower-cost systems that were impossible before. 

Strategic investment and partnerships

Blue Current continues to expand its investment and industry partnerships carefully. During 2023, new and existing investors, including Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), Piedmont Capital, and Umicore, began or continued investment. The company is using this added funding to complete its 22,000-square-foot pilot manufacturing facility at its headquarters in Hayward, California. The pilot will be used to prove its batteries can be scaled economically using high-volume LIB manufacturing equipment. 

Battery technology for next-generation EVs and mobile devices

For next-generation EVs and mobile devices to succeed, a leap forward is needed with battery technology. To achieve this, most of the industry has been working to add highly engineered (and costly) silicon anode materials to traditional LIB cells or to develop lithium metal cells paired with liquid or gel electrolytes. These approaches offer the potential for higher energy but are expensive and complicated to scale. Lithium metal is also highly flammable, leading to safety concerns. To compensate, engineers must design safety at the system level with protective structures, fire-retardant materials, and complex thermal management systems. This increases product costs and limits the potential for system-level energy density improvements. Blue Current is taking a different approach.

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Blue Current's three technological advancements

The company's technology addresses three critical performance vectors. It maximizes energy density through the highest possible silicon content. The need for expensive packaging material is eliminated since Blue Current's battery cycles well at low operating pressure. Blue Current's battery is also safe and completely dry without flammable liquid or gel electrolyte materials used in traditional LIB.   

“It's clear from our progress in 2023 that there is continued and growing interest to move the EV industry forward using a silicon-first approach,” stated Kevin Wujcik, CTO at Blue Current. “Fully dry solid electrolytes are critical to achieving high silicon content anodes. The progress we've made developing elastic composite electrolyte materials and enabling low pressure makes us uniquely capable of commercializing this approach, and we're excited about the feedback we're hearing from our partners.” 

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Blue Current claims that it is the first to deliver on all three of these metrics using what it refers to as a silicon-first approach with elastic composite electrolyte technology.

Milestones achieved in 2023

Blue Current has achieved the following milestones in 2023 thanks to its technological advances.  

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“We hear all the time from customers who tell us that safety equals increased cost at the pack and system level and that they need batteries that are both safe and energy dense simultaneously,” concluded Ben Eiref, CEO at Blue Current. “This was our vision from the start. We see a future where batteries are fully dry and inherently safe by default and powered by silicon, the most abundant material on earth.”