As the globe continues to place emphasis on humanitarian efforts towards the development of innovative, sustainable green energy, lithium-ion batteries have emerged as a primary solution to the way energy is stored and used. When considering the significance that batteries hold on current society, one mustn’t look far to understand that almost every single aspect of our daily lives is run by a battery. From smartphones to electric cars, computers to the International Space Station, lithium-ion batteries have allowed technology to exist in new and exciting ways that benefit both civilization and the future of our planet.
Lithium-ion batteries have surged in popularity due to its outstanding ability to increase energy density while decreasing overall size and weight, allowing electrical devices to operate at a higher level of efficiency while being more compact and user-friendly. The energy density of traditional lead acid batteries can range anywhere from 30-50 watt-hour per kilogram, whereas the energy density of a lithium-ion battery ranges between 50-260 watt hour per kilogram. With continuous technological advancements being made in combination with a tremendous increase in demand, the global lithium-ion battery market is expected to reach in excess of $116 billion USD by 2030, of which over 50% is expected to be used in the automotive market.
One major underlying issue surrounding lithium-ion batteries, however, is thermal runaway. This phenomenon occurs when a lithium-ion cell enters an uncontrollable, self-heating state that can result in a violent discharge of gas, shrapnel, and particulates, causing extremely high temperatures to be reached, resulting in smoke and fire. With the demand for lithium-ion batteries growing at exceptional rates, one company’s disruptive thermal management technology is eager to vastly influence a $24 billion thermal management systems market and offer its consumers a safe and effective solution to the challenges of thermal runaway propagation.
KULR Technology Group Inc.
KULR Technology Group Inc. (KULR: NYSE) are leading the industry in battery safety and thermal management technologies by developing, manufacturing, and licensing state of the art carbon fiber thermal management technologies for batteries and electronic systems. By leveraging the company’s expertise in developing advanced cooling solutions and backed be a strong intellectual property portfolio, KULR has equipped prominent aerospace, electronics, energy storage, 5G infrastructure and electric vehicle manufacturers the ability to make their products cooler, lighter and safer for the consumers. Founded in 2013, its mission has been driven by ambitions of harvesting a technology portfolio of aerospace and defense applications developed over the previous 30 years and applying it towards producing electronics and batteries that are cooler, lighter, and safer.
Since its inception, KULR’s long term strategy has targeted the co-development of groundbreaking thermal management technologies alongside the likes of NASA, the US Department of Energy (DoE) and the US Department of Defense (DoD), all while striving to exceed the benchmarks set forth by regulatory agencies and international testing organizations. With intentions of incorporating these technologies into mass market applications, KULR’s strategy has generated promising results which could immediately impact the battery transportation and energy storage markets.
Products
Having identified that efficient thermal management is essential in the growing battery safety and electronics industries, KULR has developed an impressive arrangement of products that offer outstanding thermal management and battery transportation solutions to its consumers:
Cathode provides a means of generating powerful pulses of electrons by field emission from the tops of its carbon fiber velvets, used by numerous clients from varying industries such as the Air Force Research Lab, the Naval Research Lab, Raytheon, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and BAE Systems Bofors AB. This product can be customized for different applications including the generation of microwaves, x-rays, and laser radiation and was mainly developed for use by researchers.
Safe Case, which is approved by the U.S. Transportation Department for storage and transport of lithium-ion batteries, can be utilized to mitigate thermal runaway providing a safe and sustainable storage and transportation solution of lithium-ion cells and battery packs up to 2.1KWh per case for recycled, prototype and damaged, defective, and recalled batteries.
Heritage Battery Recycling, whom through its sister companies maintains access to more than 100,000 customer locations, employing 2500 workers operating a fleet of over 1300 power units and 108 facility locations across North America recently announced its intentions to utilize KULR Safe Cases for the safe transportation logistics of its battery collection operations across North America.
Thermal Capacitor is a carbon fiber infused heat sink that utilizes phase change materials (PCM) to absorb or provide heat, which successfully reduces system temperature excursions and extends both the life of key components in your products as well as overall operating times. Due to its low mass, it saves on weight and volume by reducing or even eliminating the need for active cooling.
This product offers an ideal solution for thermal management issues in the Aerospace and Defense industry, allowing for highly effective heat capacity over a small temperature range. This process is highly necessary for the use of batteries in space, high powered lasers, and RF components which is particularly useful for compact and high-performance devices that require bursts of computational power in short time intervals.
Additionally, KULR has developed a proprietary high thermal conductivity fiber core material that achieves fast and uniform melting of PCM in any orientation while in low gravity and is currently utilized by leaders in the US aerospace and defense industries, found inside NASA’s X-38 re-entry vehicle, LEO flight, Mercury Messenger satellite, and NICER telescope on the International Space Station.
Thermal Runaway Shield (TRS) acts as a heat sink during normal lithium-ion battery pack operation which absorbs heat and shields battery pack cells from entering thermal runaway propagation. This product keeps neighboring cell temperatures from rising above 100°C, which is well below the 130°C threshold when thermal runaway propagation becomes a concern.
With effective passive thermal management solutions for battery packs ranging from 10 to 4000 cells in high demand, KULR’s US-designed, NASA tested design is an extremely light weight, durable heat sink that keeps lithium-ion batteries cooler and safer. This product appears destined to reshape a flourishing electric automotive industry that demands safe and reliable, light-weight battery management solutions.
Fiber Thermal Interface (FTI) is a flexible and high performance thermally conductive carbon fiber material that reduces heat conduction across the interface by increasing contact between the two surfaces, eliminating the primary cause of thermal contact resistance which occurs between surface irregularities. This product offers a unique combination of benefits to its customers by increasing power densities of the board layout, relieving mechanical stress, increasing thermal stability and reliability, allowing for high temperature tolerance in harsher working conditions, increasing overall product performance and reliability, and achieving reduced manufacturing costs through low contact pressure and high bond line thickness.
Variations of KULR’s FTI technology have been used by NASA on multiple missions including the Mars Perseverance Rover mission launched on July 30th, 2020, and can also be found in the 1200 horsepower, 206 mph Drako GTE luxury electric supercar as part of the thermal management system. In addition, KULR’s FTI technologies has the potential to accelerate 5G communications development, which has been labelled as one of the biggest opportunities going forward for transportation technologies and shows promises of infiltrating an addressable $8 billion market, as stated in a detailed analyst report by Litchfield Hills Research.
Internal Short Circuit is utilized in lithium-ion cells and battery packs to identify failure modes and safety issues. KULR’s exclusively licensed internal short circuit (ISC) technology, which was co-developed between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and NASA was developed to replace current archaic testing methods such as the nail penetration test. The device operates by intentionally short circuiting a lithium-ion cell on demand when the cell is heated to between 40° and 60°C, allowing the cell to short circuit in a controlled environment.
Rising above other evaluation methodologies that mechanically damage the battery exterior to activate the short, this innovative technology makes it possible to accurately pinpoint and resolve issues that ultimately lead to battery malfunction, which impressively captured the prestigious R&D100 Award in 2016 and was runner-up for the NASA Invention of the Year Award in 2017.
Forward
The company is currently enjoying the strongest financial position in its history, boasting cash reserves of more than $12 million as of July 2021 with little to no debt on record. Armed with surging levels of capital and a newly minted NYSE up-listing, the company has managed to captivate the minds of its high-level consumers and set itself apart from its competitors with offerings of state-of-the-art technologies, expanding visibility to a broad pool of institutional and retail investors and increasing liquidity along the way.
Having already established key partnerships with the likes of NASA, DoT, CPSC and the United Nations, KULR appears destined to become a household name in battery performance and energy efficiency sector, and when considering its current market cap of roughly $200 million, investors will begin to take notice that the potential to capitalize on the surging multi-billion dollar lithium-ion battery and thermal management systems industry is near, presenting immediate value to shareholders portfolios in the near future.
