The Battery That Could Change the World: Natrion is Paving the Way With Solid-State Ion Batteries

Natrion hopes to become the first all-American battery company. Its Research and Development Team includes, from left: Connor Kniaz (Lab Assistant), Gavin Depew (Lab Assistant), Tom Rouffiac (Co-Founder and COO), Duke Shih (CTO), and Alex Kosyakov (Co-Founder and CEO).

Young entrepreneurs are increasingly becoming catalysts for grand new ways of thinking. In the case of recent startup Natrion, an alum of the national Hacking for Defense program, the team’s innovation is revolutionizing batteries and power supply as we know it. 

The opportunities before them are far beyond anything they could have imagined when they started. It took getting an in-depth and personal understanding of modern power supply shortfalls to awaken them to the true potential for change on both the commercial and Defense levels.

In 2017, a high school student named Alex Kosyakov won an internship at a materials engineering lab. There, he was given the freedom to tinker in his off hours, and he used his time wisely. Alex developed early-stage prototypes of what would become the first solid-state lithium and sodium ion batteries, discoveries that would make batteries safer and improve performance. The trouble was, though clearly advanced beyond his years as an engineer, he didn’t immediately realize his inventions carried such far-reaching potential. 

Kosyakov patented his early concepts when he started his undergraduate studies at University of Illinois. Under the guidance of his lecturer and advisor, Alex Gorsuch, he decided to try the school’s iVenture accelerator and eventually pursued Hacking for Defense. Here, he and his small team of material engineers and business students gained insight into the vast applications their inventions could have in the Defense industry. In 2018, still undergraduates, the team founded Natrion. In that capacity, they have continued to develop solid-state batteries with a state-of-the-art ceramic-polymer composite solid-state electrolyte called Lithium Solid Ionic Composite, or LISIC.

The R&D team at work in Natrion’s laboratory facility at the University of Illinois Research Park in Champaign, Illinois.

Traditional Power Pitfalls

When he began his research, Kosyakov had little concept of the existing depth of need for a better battery and power sources. He knew the common shortcomings of traditional power sources, including fire risks, weight, noise, maintenance and limits regarding recharging. But in his time with H4D, Kosyakov began hearing first-hand the stories that gave true meaning to his creation.

He spoke to personnel being evaluated in drills on stealth yet forced to rely on portable diesel generators that roared to life the moment they were turned on. They'd already failed in the stealth criteria before they’d begun. This, he knew, corresponded to in-theater scenarios in which maintaining a low-profile means the difference between life and death. 

He spoke to armed servicemen serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who drove resupply trucks into austere forward operating bases, lugging heavy, broken generators over bomb-strewn roads knowing that the generators could not be fixed because the necessary parts weren’t available. 

He spoke to a scouting unit in Afghanistan that carried a heavy generator to support their radios for maintaining communications, yet found themselves far ahead of their squad, in hostile territory, with dead radios and a generator that wouldn't start. 

Diesel generators exist to provide on-site power, albeit loudly, but they only work if supplied with enough fuel. According to the U.S. Army 52 percent of all US military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan occurred during attacks on land-based resupply missions – resupply convoys bringing the very fuel upon which those generators depend.

“We didn't realize that generators have been dictating how Warfighters have operated since the World War II era,” said Kosyakov. “We learned that if we could deliver a way to carry power through energy storage versus relying on generation, the expeditionary capabilities of Warfighters and the DoD in general would be greatly enhanced, not to mention the opportunities for the public. We were awe struck by how huge the problem is right now, but also at how huge the potential is if we can make energy storage work for the DoD,” he said.

A ruggedized battery cell using LISIC technology to power an LED.

From DoD-Minded to Dual-Use

Natrion started with a plan to build stationary energy storage systems like microgrids to replace generators for both commercial and Defense customers. After further research, the team unveiled an opportunity to do even more to solve safety and performance issues in portable electronics, radios, and communications equipment in consumer electronics. This led to the electric vehicle market which is currently the biggest market for batteries in the commercial space. 

Electric vehicles, in turn, led to concepts for improved drones for the DoD. 

“Our experimenting has created an interesting cycle between Defense and commercial opportunities. They’ve been happening in tandem, with one idea leading to another, but everything began with the DoD, in terms of tech validation. We reach new milestones with the DoD, then translate those capabilities to the commercial side. That has worked really well for us,” said Kosyokov. 

Another major shift in the design concept for Natrion was in the size and usability of the batteries once created. Initially, they embarked on developing a large battery that could replace and mimic traditional diesel generators. After speaking with end users and customers, team members realized the impracticality of these large, heavy and burdensome machines. The team pivoted to a revolutionary idea for a modular battery suite that could be large and powerful, or broken down into smaller, lightweight components, including cargo pocket batteries for radios. 

”Walking into H4D, we thought, ‘What could the DoD possibly want with more batteries?’ But once we completed the customer discovery, we found that it was one of its highest priorities. We also understood the applications to the commercial side as well. We really started working in a dual-use way,” Kosyakov said.

Lab assistant Gavin Depew holds up a sheet of Natrion’s LISIC solid electrolyte technology for lithium-ion batteries.

A Future for Safer, Better Power

Looking ahead at uses for Natrion’s solid-state batteries, the company hopes the world will soon be ready to embrace its solid-state sodium ion battery as well. Sodium ion batteries are compelling for ecological and humanitarian reasons, as they don’t rely on the harmful mining of dwindling resources, like lithium, or cobalt, two critical components often linked to human rights abuses and environmental pollution. These resources also can’t be sourced in the U.S, demanding a reliance on potential adversaries. 

Kosyakov and his team are already working with local, American manufacturers and factories, and waiting until the market matures to accept sodium. Their goal is set for 2025 and beyond. The change would give Natrion something it strives to become: a truly American battery company. While countries such as China vie for power over cobalt mines and lithium salt beds around the world, Natrion envisions an America that sources, produces and builds its own battery materials domestically. It’s a future they can believe in, as they lay the groundwork for it, one battery at a time.