Energy storage

Ann Marie Sastry | Solid state energy storage: Game-changing technology for the 21st century

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• published: 04 Apr 2014
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"Solid state energy storage: Game-changing technology for the 21st century" Ann Marie Sastry, president and CEO, Sakti3 Inc. Energy Seminar - March 31, 2014 Formation and aging costs, coupled with limitations in construction due to lamination, physical limits of transport and mechanics and limited ability to integrate new materials into the existing manufacturing approach, will severely limit gains in performance and safety in this generation of technology. The incumbent technology further requires massive downstream costs to assure the safety of these liquid-based systems, in the form of safety and containment systems. Examination of a mapping of the available materials against their probable effect on cell properties yields a simple conclusion: the incumbent technology benefits have essentially reached their limit, as established holistically by laboratory developments, optimization simulations, and recent commercially reported properties. Solid state battery technology, though offering a very different development path enabling breakthrough performance and safety, has been relegated to the realm of R&D; due to intrinsically high cost, unscalable manufacturing processes that result in high cell cost. Recently, however, Sakti3, a university spinout founded by researchers and engineers with decades of experience in battery research and thin film and other manufacturing, developed an approach for production of cells which offers all of the benefits of the theoretically highest energy density materials available. These massively replicable, cheap and reliable production methods enable cell manufacturing in a single, unified line and produce product that is ready to ship. Integration of new, environmentally benign energy generation technologies will require improved energy storage both for regulation of load, and for storage of solar and wind power. Non emissive automobiles and use of existing electrical power grids to power them, require safe, onboard traction storage systems. And finally, the democratization of information and the use of mobile devices as the primary, and often the only, connectivity to the internet and commerce, requires safe, high energy density storage technology be available to the consumer. We discuss our vision for technology deployment and future product development using solid state processing of energy storage technology and integration into existing and new infrastructures. Ann Marie Sastry brings over 25 years’ leadership and technical experience to her role at Sakti3, building a management team with experience in finance, manufacturing and technology. She personally trained the core technical team. Sastry has co-authored over 70 awarded and filed patents, over 100 scientific publications, and delivered over 100 invited lectures at research, government and private institutions globally. Prior to leading Sakti3, Sastry was the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan. Tenured and promoted early, she founded and led two research centers in batteries and bioscience, and a global graduate program. Her laboratory originated the technical work that underpins Sakti3 technology, and was continuously funded by the DOE for over 17 years. She also led work sponsored by NSF, NIH, Army, ONR, DARPA, General Motors, Ford, LBNL, and ORNL. She has received several of the highest technical honors in her field, including the 2011 ASME Frank Kreith Energy Award, 2007 ASME Gustus Larson Award and the NSF's PECASE (1997). She holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from Cornell University, and a BS from the University of Delaware, in Mechanical Engineering.