The race to introduce electric vehicles on a massive scale due to government regulations has caused shortages, given long production times for batteries. But Intecells, a company in Troy, hopes to speed up the process by reinventing lithium-ion battery manufacturing.
“The biggest factor in introducing vehicles, consumer electronics, power tools, and wearables that run on batteries is the weight, high costs, and rigidity,” says Xiaohong “Shawn” Gayden, co-founder and CEO of Intecells, who spent 24 years at General Motors Co. in Detroit.
The company’s cold-plasma-based printing process can create batteries with 3-D topologies that offer flexible battery cell shapes and configurations.
“Our technology doubles the energy and power density of battery cells, offers a tenfold increase in electrode coating adhesion, and reduces manufacturing costs by 93 percent,” says Gayden, who leads eight employees. “Overall, we can reduce battery costs by 40 percent.”
In turn, the company states its manufacturing process doesn’t use toxic solvents and can lower carbon emissions by 50 percent. “We plan to roll out our technology in 2023,” Gayden says. “There’s no textbook for what we’re doing. We’re writing the textbook.”
