Altair Awarded Grant

Altair Nanotechnologies, Inc. was awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for work to be completed within six months of the July 1, 2004 effective date. The grant is in support of a project entitled “SBIR Phase I: Carbon-Coated Nano-Structured Electrodes for Next-Generation Lithium-Ion Ultra Capacitors.”

“We are pleased to announce Altair’s first stand-alone grant, spearheaded by our new board member, Dr. David King,” said President Dr. Rudi E. Moerck.

Altair will work with Hosokawa Micron’s Nano Particle Technology Center and Rutgers University’s Energy Storage Research Group to provide for the successful design and development of high-capacity, next generation lithium-ion power sources.

Third-party studies have shown that Altair’s nano-sized lithium titanate spinel battery material exhibited charge and discharge rates up to 100 times higher than materials used in current commercially available batteries. In 2003, Telcordia Technologies (now Rutgers Energy Storage Research Group) developed a non-aqueous asymmetric hybrid prototype battery incorporating Altair’s nano-lithium titanate spinel. The Rutgers prototype battery, using Altair’s nanomaterials, met the ‘car of the future’ power assist battery requirement as published in The Journal of Power Sources, 113 (2003) 62-71 and 115 (2003) 171-178. The Rutgers’ battery is the only prototype reported, to date, to meet these Department of Energy (DOE) standards.

Nanomaterials are expected to provide an improvement in lithium-ion battery and supercapacitor performance for applications including automobile batteries, electric, and hybrid vehicles. They may also be incorporated into uninterrupted power supplies, military applications and specialized uses, such as notebook computers, mobile phones, and a variety of portable devices where rapid charge/discharge times are important.