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TechCrunch Disrupt 2023: Flint wants to disrupt the battery industry with paper
Lithium-ion batteries have become the standard in the electrification revolution.
Lithium-ion batteries have become the standard in the electrification revolution. In fact, they’ve become so unquestionably integral to the development of batteries that everyone from government to automakers to big oil is rushing to shore up access to the mineral.
The only problem is, lithium is expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive to extract. And that extraction process takes a toll on the environment. The same goes for the other materials that go into a battery, like nickel, cobalt and graphite.
A handful of startups have emerged to tinker with different chemistries in an attempt to build batteries that are more efficient, lightweight and environmentally friendly. Usually they swap out some of the standard materials, but rarely do they forego
relying on lithium altogether.
Enter Flint, a startup out of Singapore that says it has come up with a way to replace the lithium in a battery with paper.
“Paper batteries are very new to this world, and there are only a few institutions working on this technology right now,” Carlo Charles, co-founder at Flint, told TechCrunch. “We’re working on changing the materials, so instead
of fusing lithium, nickel and cobalt, we’re using zinc, manganese and cellulose papers. With those three things we can change the way the battery can be used, but keep how the battery is made. So that’s the upper hand we have compared
to other strategies and battery technologies out there.”
Flint, which participated in the TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 Startup Battlefield, only started producing its paper batteries in 2022, but the company already has a prototype. Initial tests have been promising, and now Flint wants to find partners with which
to test its paper batteries in consumer products.
Sounds good, but how does it work?
This story was first published on TechCrunch.
