Abetted by the imperiled Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA–E), the California startup company EnZinc is now well on the way to commercializing an innovative battery technology that its backers claim will match the performance of lithium-ion cells for as little as half the cost, with none of the safety concerns inherent to lithium-ion.
Michael Burz, president of EnZinc, says the company is two years away from manufacturing a battery for electric bicycles, the first of what he expects will be many applications. Others include electric vehicles and electricity storage for grids and microgrids. The technology breakthrough, discovered and developed at the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, with ARPA–E financing, is an anode material composed of a three-dimensional zinc sponge. The new material, described in the 27 April issue of Science, makes possible repeated discharge–recharge cycles of nickel–zinc batteries, an electrochemical technology that has mostly been limited to...
