Pioneering indigenous battery technologies
Pioneering indigenous battery technologies
Log9 is a battery technology business founded by Akshay Singhal, Pankaj Sharma, and Kartik Hajela. The company was founded in 2015 as the first startup at IIT-Roorkee and is now based in Bengaluru.
The company has 16 patents in graphene production and graphene products. It is IIT Roorkee’s first start-up to be incubated at its business incubator TIDES.
Log9 received its first round of funding in 2017, lead by Gems Partners, a micro venture capital fund, to establish its own R&D center in Bangalore and to collaborate with the Indian Institute of Science to manufacture products using the latter’s analytical and research capabilities.
The company has established a subsidiary in Mumbai called Log9 Spill Containment, which is a graphene-based product development company specializing in oil and chemical spill containment solutions.
Indian defence partnered with Log9 in 2017 for the deployment of nanotechnology.
The researchers initially focused on aluminum air fuel cells (Al-AFCs) rather than the standard lithium-ion batteries used in EVs. In this case, the fuel is aluminium, which reacts with air via an electrolyte to produce energy.
Log9 created India’s first Al-AFC in 2018 after a year of study. Al-AFC technology is intended for long-distance cars. Log9 created its first EV battery (test pack) in 2019. The following year, it released the fast-charging RapidX battery for intra-city use.
“On top of our tech stack, we have our indigenously developed proprietary LTO (lithium-titanium-oxide) technology cells made for tropical (suited for extreme climatic conditions) markets. Ensuring a safer design and sustainable alternative to conventional li-ion cells, we have pioneered the large cylindrical cell form factor and advanced tabless cell design structure in the domestic market,” Pankaj says.
Log9 has patents approved for its RapidX batteries, aluminium air fuel cells, supercapacitors, cell technology, and graphene. It has so far submitted over 70 patents. Customers include a variety of commercial vehicle manufacturers. Log9 was valued at $250 million when it raised $40 million in finance led by Amara Raja Batteries and Petronas Ventures in January. Log9 employs about 300 people. Sharma claims that the corporation plans to develop its 250MWh battery manufacturing plant into a 2GWh factory by the end of 2024. “Our 50MWh cell manufacturing line will soon be fully operational with an increased capacity,” he says.
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Content Credit: THE TIMES OF INDIA
