INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Using scrap silicon as its feedstock, a New Orleans-based company called Advano has raised $18.5 million to manufacture battery components
to enable more powerful, smaller and longer-lasting batteries.The technology was innovative enough to earn the Louisiana-based startup a
Capital, Data Collective and Y Combinator, are investing $18.5 million in new financing to develop Advanos manufacturing capacity and take
But no one has been able to solve four key issues concurrently: material expansion, cycle-life, cost, and drop-in manufacturing
Advano founder and chief executive Alexander Girau first developed as a student at Tulane University.Other companies, like Sila
Nanotechnologies, have raised significant amounts of money to develop ways to integrate silicon into the battery production.Basically,
batteries consist of anodes, where current flows into a battery; electrolytes, which conduct electricity; and cathodes, where current flows
In a lithium-ion battery, anodes are typically made using graphite, which has limitations related to how much charge it can store
By replacing graphite with silicon, batteries should be able to store more energy, requiring less material, thereby reducing cost and size,
according to Advano.Girau began his studies in molecular engineering and initially started working on gene therapies
The initial technology that the executive developed focused on creating surface functionalization in nanoparticles, allowing those particles
to behave in novel ways.The innovation was taking that research from biology and porting it over into materials science and battery
his company has developed a single-step process.For Advano, the key is attaching a reactive nanoparticle to silicon scrap as those scraps
