A Boston-based company is looking to the past to make batteries of the future.
Pure Lithium, a battery manufacturing startup, is reimagining lithium battery manufacturing using a method for lithium metal batteries invented by Nobel Prize winner Stanley Whittingham in 1977.
Pure Lithium was founded by Emilie Bodoin in 2021, who said in an interview that she needed to “solve the problem of getting lithium metal batteries to market." Lithium metal batteries have a lot of advantages over conventional ones. If made properly, they can last longer, be made with materials local to North America, and be non-combustible.
However, according to Bodoin, they make up less than 1% of the total battery market today because they are so costly to make.
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Pure Lithium partners with oil companies to source lithium from oil field brines, remove the lithium concentrate, and put the rest back into the ground.
The company then uses an electrochemical reactor with a membrane to selectively allow lithium to pass through while blocking other elements. The lithium is electrodeposited onto a piece of copper, creating the lithium metal anode for the battery.
“You can pump it out, give us the concentrate, and put the remaining stuff that we don't use back in the ground. It's almost half the battery there and then in the same location,” said Bodoin.
To complete the battery, Pure Lithium coats lithium onto a piece of copper and uses vanadium as the material for its cathode.
Vanadium is the world's fifth most abundant transition metal, and Bodoin says using vanadium makes batteries resistant to fire. The metal is resistant to up to 300 degrees Celsius and doesn’t release oxygen when it heats up like nickel and cobalt.
Vanadium also replaces the need for conflict metals like cobalt and nickel, reducing the supply chain demand and reducing battery production time from over a year to one day.
“All we have to get is lithium metal and a piece of copper. So, we invented a technology that we can use all sorts of oil brines all over the United States,” said Bodoin. “And instead of taking 587 days to get the lithium into your phone, we can do it in one day. It's just really simple.”
The team of 50 is based in Charlestown. It works with renowned scientist Professor Don Sadoway, a highly accomplished scientist and inventor who has worked closely with Pure Lithium on its battery technology and production methods.
According to Bodoin, Pure Lithium has raised $40 million and plans to seek a $60 million Series B round soon. Some of Pure Lithium's largest investors are Occidental Petroleum, which led a round of fundraising with $15 million, and Robert Friedland, a billionaire financier from the mining industry.
“It just is simple,” Bodoin said. "It's hard to take a step back if you're completely ingrained in the industry for so long."
