Liquid metal battery has many practical advantages and is likely to be the future trend.
Wuhan Jizhao Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 武汉吉兆储能科技有限公司), a manufacturer of liquid metal battery energy storage, announced today that it has completed angel round financing, which is exclusively invested by 5Y Capital (Chinese: 五源资本). The funds are planned to be used for product research and development, team expansion and the construction of pilot production line.
Founded in May 2023, Jizhao Energy Storage is the first supplier of liquid metal battery energy storage system in China. Relying on the National Key Laboratory of Strong Electromagnetic Technology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Jizhao Energy Storage has constructed a complete assembly and testing platform for liquid metal batteries, and is building the first pilot production line for liquid metal batteries in China.
Liquid metal battery is a new type of battery with electrodes and electrolyte running in liquid state, using liquid metal and inorganic molten salt as electrodes and electrolyte respectively, which has the advantages of low cost of energy storage, long cycle life, high safety and simple recycling. According to Jizhao energy storage calculations, liquid metal battery energy storage material cost is low, the production process is short, LCOE (levelised cost of electricity) can be achieved less than CNY 0.1 per kilowatt-hour. Compared with the current mainstream lithium iron phosphate battery energy storage and all-vanadium liquid current battery energy storage have significant advantages.
Currently, Jizhao's energy storage team has completed the design and development of liquid metal batteries ranging from 50Ah to 600Ah class, and has laid out different sizes of 200Ah class, 500Ah class and 1000Ah class cell products, and is developing a new generation of high-capacity cells. The company has also reserved a number of liquid metal energy storage demonstration projects for central enterprises, such as the Southern Power Grid, and is prepared for delivery when production capacity is complete next year or later.
As for the team, Kai Jiang, the chief scientist of Jizhao Energy Storage, used to work at MIT and is one of the key inventors of liquid metal battery technology. He returned to China at the end of 2011 to take the lead in liquid metal battery technology research in Huazhong University of Science and Technology, has a deep accumulation in the field of liquid metal battery, has presided over the national major special projects as the chief scientist. CEO Teng Xin studied under the electrochemical energy storage titan academician Yang Yusheng, Wu Feng academician, served as the vice president of the BAK Battery Group, and has nearly 20 years of rich experience in the work of battery entity enterprises.
CEO Teng Xin illustrated that with the continuous iterative optimisation of the battery material system, the synergy of the upstream and downstream industry chain and the expansion of application scenarios, it is believed that the large-scale industrialisation of liquid metal batteries is not far away. "
Jizhao Energy Storage aspires to be the leader in the industrialisation of technology in the field of liquid metal batteries and the navigator of medium- and long-term energy storage. The mission of Jizhao Energy Storage is to make green power everywhere, and in the next step, Jizhao will continue to plough into R&D innovation and supply chain synergy, accelerate the scale application of liquid metal battery technology, and contribute to the development of China's energy storage business and technological progress."
According to Xu Xiaoyu, the investor of 5Y Capital, expressed that, "Liquid metal battery is a brand new electrochemical energy storage technology with advantages of long cycle life, simple structure, convenient manufacturing, high safety and low cost, which will have a very broad application prospect in medium and long term energy storage.
As the first enterprise to carry out the industrialisation of liquid metal batteries in China, Jizhao has excellent R&D and engineering experience. We continue to be optimistic about the team's execution ability and strategic vision, and hope that Jizhao will complete the large-scale production as soon as possible and become an industry leader in new energy storage systems. "