Your Car Can Run On Water And Air With This Made-In-India Battery

Log 9 Material nanotechnology startup based in India has raised hopes that you can refill the fuel tank of your car before a long trip just by water only. The team believes that graphene - Carbon's magical isotopes can help the Log 9 plan's success. If this plan succeeds, in the future we may say goodbye to oil, gasoline, and CNG.

Since its inception in December 2015, Log 9 Material has documented many uses of graphene over the past three years. During the study, the Log 9 team found an application of graphene in batteries, which has made a technological breakthrough. There is a significant increase in the use of these batteries due to electric vehicles' mass adoption globally.

The water powered vehicles don't have conventional IC engines. They are fueled by electricity. People often wonder how 'battery' and 'water' can be put together. This combination fits surprisingly well to create a particular battery, specifically referred to as a metal-air battery.

Firstly, this battery will have the structure of cathode and anode as regular batteries, but the air (oxygen) is used as cathode and metal is used as an anode, the electrolyte will be water. Secondly, the graphene rod is placed in the battery's cathode. Using oxygen as a cathode, researchers must use a sufficiently porous material to allow the air to pass through, and graphene is the most suitable substance for this.

The use of graphene in the manufacture of this battery increases the battery's performance by up to 5 times with one-third of the cost.

Are metal-air batteries better and more practical in life?

For vehicles using lithium-ion battery power, recharging is always a problem for drivers. But for this metal-air battery, drivers do not have to worry about that, they just need to fill water into the fuel tanks and hit the road. You only need to top off your vehicle with enough water to let you drive for several hundred kilometers and then you can comfortably enjoy the trip.

Cobalt is one of the primary materials that produce lithium-ion batteries, but it is a limited resource. The use of metal-air batteries reduces the consumption of cobalt - a natural resource. Moreover, the government does not invest in much money to build fuel facilities for EV vehicles as well as other related infrastructure. At the same time, this also reduces the fuel consumption of nature. Most of this type of battery is made up of fossil fuels.

What are the challenges that we might face using these metal-air batteries?

The research about the use of metal-air batteries for electric vehicles is not new. There are many companies and projects on this technology including big and famous car companies. The company that currently holds the largest market share in the electric vehicle market - Tesla is also interested in this project.

Although it has many benefits, it also has many inadequacies and needs to be further researched to solve. For example, corrosion leads to irreversible capacity loss, which may decrease the battery's life expectancy. Many questions have been raised to the research team at Log 9 Materials.

Company co-founder Kartik Hajela has said the company uses material capabilities to reduce and try to prevent corrosion in the most vulnerable parts. The team has created an IP around this process.

He also said that another difficulty that the team faced was battery draining. However, researchers at Log 9 Material has been able to increase the power of each cell battery by four to five times.

Will this battery be in the market in the future?

Yes. According to Kartik,, metal-air batteries and other product development cycles are being optimized by researchers to be qualified for market launch. Also, it is the same for the POC. These products are expected to be on the market in 2020 for fixed purposes. Simultaneously create commercial prototyping and for mobile applications

Regarding price, he said the cost of the battery would be cheaper or equal to the current battery. Although, based on the material and its production process to set the price, this is still a guess. Through the use of graphene, it is expected that the cost of production will be cut down to fit many people's budgets.

This is not the only product that uses graphene as a material, Log 9 Materials has previously produced many products based on graphene. For example, a filtration media and a Post-Purification Filter (PPuF) for smokers called Log 9 Oil Sorbent.

Through these new studies, the company has attracted a lot of investor interest in the GEMS Micro-VC Fund. Many companies jointly invest a total port to Rs 3 crore into the fund.