Competitors

At the moment I think Li-S Energy have 2 approaches to making money:
1. Helping battery manufacturer retrofit their existing production lines so they can produce lithium sulphur batteries and selling them BNNTs and Li-Nanomesh
2. Selling Li-Nanomesh on it's own as it is supposedly excellent at stopping dendrites from forming



"Interesting the Nanomesh, the dendrite composite we have developed that doesn’t apply just to Lithium Sulphur batteries. They can also apply to any battery with a metal anode. So a lithium metal battery, potentially a sodium battery or even a zinc anode battery. Any battery that has dendrite problems, in terms of creating these spikes that cause short circuits. It appears from our initial testing that our Nanomesh composite actually solves that problem really, really well, so we are accelerating that part of the technology quickly because we may well have other partners, other opportunities to sell that earlier as well as completing our Lithium Sulphur work."

Li-Energy

• "Li-S Energy continues to make strong technical progress with test results on a single layer BNNT protected lithium-sulphur pouch cell reaching 900 charge/discharge cycles at >60% retained capacity"
• Cost? Extremely high in my books

Cost - Background

• BNNT Technology Limited (BNNTLL) is a joint venture between the PPK Group and Deakin University
• Li-S Energy is a joint venture between the PPK Group, Deakin University and BNNTLL
• "Li-S Energy has secured a supply agreement with BNNT Technology Limited to provide commercial quantities of BNNTs as well as an exclusive distribution agreement to distribute BNNTs to the global battery industry for use in lithium-sulphur batteries."
• Supply chain risk cited in the Prospectus: BNNTLL is Li-S Energy's sole supplier so there is risk that if BNNTTL is unable to satisfy the Company’s requirements, it will be difficult and expensive to acquire BNNTs from other sources

Cost - BNNTs

• Back on 09/09/20 Deakin Uni had a media release that stated “They [BNNTs] are notoriously expensive to produce, with one kilogram valued at $900,000, and difficult to manufacture at scale.” https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/news-and-media-releases/articles/deakins-boron-nitride-nanotubes-bnnt-are-pure-and-industry-ready
• 30/04/2021 ASX announcement: “…annual BNNT production per module could be in the order of 50kg which is more than three times the original BNNT production estimate of 15kg p/a…Importantly the finished BNNT product still achieves >95% purity. The cost of each module has gone from $700,000 to only $850,000 to achieve this increase in production. This breakthrough means that BNNT Technology Limited is now the lowest cost pure BNNT producer in the world”

Cost - my questions

1. I wonder what it costs BNNTLL to produce 1kg of BNNTs now? (I reckon the recently reduced cost would still be far from competitive)
2. In my research of Li-S Energy, the desire for a 1,000 km EV has been emphasised. I wonder how much BNNT would be required in a lithium sulphur battery powered EV that can travel 1,000 km on a single charge? Per Figure 3 above, a single layer of BNNT is all that's required, but who knows how much that would weigh

COMPETITORS

Lyten
- gravimetric energy density of 900Wh/kg.
- a prototype design has demonstrated greater than 1,400 cycles.
- ideal for electric vehicles because they have the ability to charge rapidly, demonstrated by 3C charge rates (20 minutes)
- critical to this claimed battery breakthrough was the development of 3D Graphene, a novel three-dimensional graphene material platform that took years to refine.
- Pilot Line will come online in December 2021. The Pilot Line will have the ability to produce over a quarter a million cells per year in support of customer qualification. The Pilot Line will be tooled to produce pouch, prismatic, and cylindrical cells in numerous sizes.
- expect full production and market availability for '25-'26 model year vehicles.

Monash University
- simply by adding a glucose-based additive on the positive electrode, researchers from the Monash Energy institute have created a longer-lasting, lighter, more sustainable rival to lithium-ion batteries.
- test-cell prototypes constructed by the team have been shown to have a charge-discharge life of at least 1000 cycles, while still holding more capacity than equivalent lithium-ion batteries.
- the Monash team currently has a prototype pouch battery with an energy density of 206Wh/kg.
- Enserv Australia plans to develop the technology further and manufacture lithium-sulphur batteries in Australia within the next five years.

Sold State Batteries



Quantumscape

- market cap: 10 billion USD
- performance figures for what may be the first commercially viable solid-state lithium-metal battery: It's claimed to add as much as 80 percent to the range of an electric car, and charge from 0-80 percent in just 15 minutes
- by weight, it offers somewhere between 380-500 Wh/kg, compared to around 260 Wh/kg for the current Telsa packs
- the life cycle of a single-layer pouch cell constantly charging and discharging at 1C (full charge in 1 hour, full discharge in 1 hour) in a rather warm 30 degrees Celsius was also very strong, retaining more than 80% of its capacity after 800 cycles. This would represent about 240,000 miles (386,000 km) traveled in an EV



CONCLUSION
- from my research out of the 4 companies covered above only 2 are 'invest-able' (Li-S Energy and Quantumscape).
- as a retail investor if I could invest in Lyten I 100% would. They have the highest energy density, assumingly lower costs than Li-S Energy (they aren't using BNNTs) and are ahead of Li-S Energy in terms of testing.
- in saying that, I think I will put a bit of money in Li-S Energy and Quantumscape since there is probably still some upside

Please share any other competitors you come across. Preferably competitors who are developed enough to have released energy density figures, number of life cycles, their timelines etc.

DYOR