Industry | Electronics |
---|---|
Founded | 1 January 2008 ![]() |
Headquarters | Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania |
Key people | CEO Philip Juline[1] Founder Jay Whitacre |
Products | Aqueous Hybrid Ion (AHI) battery |
Aquion Energy is a Pittsburgh-based company that manufactured sodium ion batteries (salt water batteries) and electricity storage systems.
The company claims to provide a low-cost way to store large amounts of energy (e.g. for an electricity grid) through thousands of battery cycles, and a non-toxic end product made from widely available material inputs and which operates safely and reliably across a wide range of temperatures and operating environments.[2]
The company was founded in 2008 by Jay F. Whitacre, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and Ted Wiley. They set up research and development offices in Lawrenceville, where it produced pilot-stage batteries. Whitacre received a BA in physics from Oberlin College and a PhD in materials science from the University of Michigan. He held positions at California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, studying energy-related topics ranging from fundamental materials function to systems engineering. In 2007 he accepted a professorship at Carnegie Mellon.[3][4]
The company raised funding from Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Bill Gates, Nick and Jobey Pritzker, Bright Capital and Advanced Technology Ventures, among others.[5]
In 2011, an individual battery stack was promoted to store 1.5 kWh, a shipping container-sized unit 180 kWh.[6] The battery cannot overheat.[7] The company expected its products to last many charge/discharge cycles,[8] twice as long as a lead-acid battery. Costs were claimed to be about the same as with lead-acid.[9][10]
In October 2014 they announced a new generation with a single stack reaching 2.4 kWh and a multi-stack module holding 25.5 kWh.[11][12]
In 2015, the company announced it would supply batteries for a Hawaii microgrid to serve as backup for a 176-kilowatt solar panel array that would store 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity.[13] In April 2015 they announced they have been cradle-to-cradle design certified.[14][15] It was also reported they were reducing headcount.[16]
In September 2015, Whitacre won the Lemelson–MIT Prize.[17]
In March 2017, Aquion Energy filed for voluntary bankruptcy under Chapter 11.[18][19]
On March 8, 2017, Dr. Mike D. Murdock and A. J. Congdon began creating Juline-Titans LLC with lawyers in Texas and Delaware, Filing in Delaware on May 30, 2017. Juline-Titans LLC is an American Company. Any speculation by reporters, writers or publishers of any entity contrary to the statement of ownership is in error. Plans for moving the Aquion Energy owned by Juline-Titans LLC, associated with Looking Great . Co out of the United States of America are, also, in error.
In June 2017, bidding starting with a stalking horse offer of $2.8 million from an Austrian battery firm, BlueSky Energy.[20] Juline-Titans LLC, an affiliate of the China Titans Energy Technology Group, won the bidding with an offer of $9.16 million - a small fraction of the reported $190 million in venture capital and debt the company had raised from investors including Bill Gates, Gentry Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Foundation Capital, Bright Capital, Advanced Technology Ventures, Trinity Capital Investment and CapX Partners, Yung’s Enterprise, and Nick and Joby Pritzker.[21][22]
In August 2017, MIT Technology Review claimed the China Titans acquisition would mean that Aquion "will continue operating as an independent entity, with research and development probably remaining in Pittsburgh. But manufacturing may move elsewhere, potentially somewhere in China."[23]
In September 2017 Juline-Titans closed the East Huntingdon Township facility and moved production to China.[24]
Main article: Sodium-ion battery |
The battery materials are non-toxic.[25] As of early 2014, the cathode used manganese oxide and relies on intercalation reactions. The anode was a titanium phosphate (NaTi2(PO4)3).[26] The electrolyte was <5M NaClO4.[27] A synthetic cotton separator was reported.[28] The electrode layers were unusually thick (>2 mm), which reduces power density. The device used Siemens power inverter technology.[29]
The company set up manufacturing facilities at a former Sony television assembly plant in East Huntingdon, Pennsylvania[30] initially proposing a capacity of 500 megawatt-hours per year in 2013 and 2014.[31] In March 2014 they announced that commercial shipments of batteries would begin in mid-2014,[32] and in May 2014 announced they had shipped 100 units.[33]