Binderless Technology – Smart Energi

New Breakthrough Battery Solution!

For the Electric Vehicle (EV), Electric Vertical Take-off & Landing (eVTOL) Aircraft and Stationary Energy Storage Markets.

High-Performance | Low-Cost | Naturally Abundant | Environmentally Friendly

Support True Fast Charging

Fully charge the battery (0 to 100%) in 12 minutes or less while maintaining high capacity retention

Enable Cheaper Batteries

We enable the processing of cheaper, high capacity battery materials that can help reduce cost by over 50%

Minimize Supply Disruption

Use materials that are abundant and available in lots of countries. Avoids having to worry about replacing oil price/supply shocks with battery material price/supply shocks as EVs overtake internal combustion vehicles.

THE INNOVATION

SmartEnergi has developed a combination of material and manufacturing process innovation that overcomes poor ionic/electronic conductivity and large volume changes during battery charging and discharging processes of current lithium-ion battery that use current battery materials, as well as next generation advanced batteries that use new earth abundant, cheaper and high capacity battery materials. Additionally, our innovation eliminates conventional binding agents such as PVDF as well as toxic solvent such an NMP in the conventional electrode production process.

Binder Free Anode: New anode alternative for lithium metal and graphite anodes in lithium-ion batteries.

Our breakthrough, disruptive, and transformational solution is a game-changing high-performance binder-free iron oxide electrode with about three times the gravimetric and volumetric capacity of conventional graphite anode (1000 mAh/g @1C and 2000 mAh/cc). It is a safer, low-cost, naturally abundant, and environmentally friendlier alternative anode to lithium metal anode and graphite anode.

Binder Free Cathodes: New low-cost high capacity binder free cathodes, and improvement of existing cathodes using current active materials

Our innovation is agnostic to battery chemistry. We have successfully applied the innovation to improve cathodes based on current lithium-ion materials. We also expect to apply this innovation on earth abundant and high capacity cathode materials (both intercalation and conversion cathodes)

VALUE PROPOSITION / COMPETITIVE DIFFERENTIATION

Much of the competitive differentiation we offer lie in the value our binderless electrode innovation delivers to existing battery manufacturers, which is summarized below

Product Advantage: Significantly Improved Performance

Cycle Life: 10X cycle life performance
Rates: 10X charge/discharge rate advantage
Stability: Improved thermal stability because of electrode with high thermal conductivity
Capacity Retention: High capacity retention (92% capacity retention at cycle number 500 while cycling at 5C)

Production Cost Advantage

Low Material Cost Advantage

Environmental Advantage

Use of Abundant and Cheaper Raw Materials

Battery Chemistry: Innovation is agnostic to battery chemistry (future-proof)
Raw Materials for Advanced Batteries: Most appropriate for processing emerging low cost, high capacity active materials for advanced batteries.
Growth: Positioned for future growth with customers when industry adopts new materials

Strong IP Position

Capacity

Higher reversible capacity (1.6 to 2X+ improvement in energy density, depending on the cathode). Detail are shown in Table 1 &2 below:

Table 1: Cell Energy Density Comparison With Different Cell Developers and Manufacturers - Hi Si/C vs Fe2O3 Anodes and NMC811 Cathodes

Manufacturer	Solid Power (Today)	Sionic Inc (Today)	SmartEnergi Corp (Target)	SmartEnergi Corp (Next generation Batteries)
Battery Chemistry	Hi Content Silicon-Graphite Anode/NMC811 Cathode	Hi Content Silicon-Graphite Anode/NMC811 Cathode	Binderless Iron Oxide Anode/Binderless NMC 811 (Modeling)	Binderless Iron Oxide Anode/Binderless FeFl3 (Modeling)
Specific Energy Density (Wh/kg)	340*	350*	416	520
Volumetric Energy Density (Wh/L)	930*	1050*	1268	1456

*Source: Solid Power Investor Presentation; Sionic Inc Technical presentation

Table 2: Cell Energy Density Comparison With Different Cell Developers and Manufacturers - Li Metal Vs Iron Anode Oxide and NMC811 Cathode Battery Chemistries

Manufacturer	Solid Power (Target)	QuantumScape (Today)	SmartEnergi Corp (Target)	SmartEnergi Corp (Next generation)
Battery Chemistry	Lithium metal/ NMC811 Cathode	Lithium metal/ NMC811 Cathode	Binderless Iron Oxide Anode/Binderless NMC 811 (Modeling)	Binderless Iron Oxide Anode/Binderless FeFl3 (Modeling)
Specific Energy Density (Wh/kg)	440*	350 - 450*	416	520
Volumetric Energy Density (Wh/L)	930*	1050*	1268	1456

*Source: Solid Power Investor Presentation; Quantum Scape Investor presentation

Implication for Commercialization

The commercial implication of this result for applications requiring durable high rate capability is that our innovation can support 6 minutes fast charge (equivalent of 10C charge rate) or 12 minutes fast charge (equivalent of 5C charge rate) with minimal change in capacity. For instance, at 5C, we retain 92% of the capacity after 500 cycles! By contrast, conventional cells cycled at this rate can achieve no more than 200 cycles, and may achieve significantly less cycle life, depending on the chemistry.

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